


Fall of The Daughter, Rise of The Son

by Loki Is Not Low Key (RichardGraysonPercyJackson), RichardGraysonPercyJackson



Series: The Beast and The Monster [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Big Brother Thor (Marvel), Big Sister Hela, Descent into Madness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Madness, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Parent Frigga (Marvel), but that's sarcasm, mentioned Thanos - Freeform, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26839825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RichardGraysonPercyJackson/pseuds/Loki%20Is%20Not%20Low%20Key, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RichardGraysonPercyJackson/pseuds/RichardGraysonPercyJackson
Summary: Before her father sent her away, Hela was the big sister to two little brothers.Though she loves him dearly, Hela knows her fall would not have happened had it not been for the madness of her dear little Silvertongue*The Fall of Hela Odinsdottir, The Rise of Loki Laufeyson
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Hela & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: The Beast and The Monster [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957792
Comments: 20
Kudos: 89





	1. The Birth of Little Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> That's a really bad summery, I sowy : P

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Thor was born, Hela despised him.
> 
> When Loki was born, Hela loved him

**535 AD - Asgard**

When Thor was born, Hela wanted nothing to do with him. He was fat and  _ loud _ and looked nothing like her. Which was expected, of course. Hela looked nothing like their parents while Thor bore near perfect resemblance to Queen Frigga.

It makes Hela feel...unwanted. Outcast. She hates it. She hates him.

“I did not want a little brother,” she told her mother one evening as Frigga prepared to settled the ever wailing babe into his bassinet for the night. “I wanted a sister.”

“I know,” Frigga told her, reaching one hand out to soothe Hela’s black locks before her hand returned to the fat little baby in her arms. “But the norns have decided that you shall have a brother instead.”

Hela did not want a brother. Her mother did not seem to care so she decided to seek out her father instead. If he insisted on keeping Thor, that was fine, just so long as he promised to try for another baby so Hela could have a sister.

So the young Princess sought out her father who, predictably, was seated upon his throne despite the fact that there was no one in the room, nor were their any meetings scheduled for the rest of the week.

“Father,” Hela said as she walked up the steps with poise and grace as she was taught.

Odin hummed though his attention seemed to remain somewhere off the middle distance. He wasn’t listening, he was never listening, yet Hela tried anyway.

“I would like a little sister.”

…………………………….

**965 AD - Asgard**

Hela does not get a little sister. She does not get another little sibling at all until nearing four hundred and thirteen years later when she’s an adult in her room, reading, and she hears wails from down the hall.

“Those are not Thor’s wails,” she murmured as she closed her book and stood, heels clacking against the cold linoleum of the floor as she made her way down the hall. Despite being the equivalent to the mortal age of nine years old, Prince Thor is quite the cry baby, though his cries are far louder and more desperately seeking attention than these.

As she approaches the door, partly open, she can hear Thor inside proclaiming, “I want to see! I wanna see!” followed by Frigga’s soft, gentle voice,

“In a moment, Thor. He’s frightened, you need to give him space.”

Frowning a bit harder, Hela pushed open the door to Thor’s playroom - a large room connected to Thor’s own by a short passage - and finds Thor bouncing at their mother’s heels while Frigga holds tight to a bundle in her arms, the wailing having stopped though Hela can still hear soft hiccups.

“Mother?” she asks, drawing the Queen and Thor’s attention, neither having heard her enter. “What’s going on?”

“Hela,” Frigga greeted with a gentle smile. “Did we bother you?”

It doesn’t answer Hela’s question but she doesn’t get to point that out before Thor - she still hates him, that has not changed - runs over and grabs her arm, frantically tugging her over to their mother.

“Mama, Hela’s here!” Thor declares, as though Frigga is not already aware of this. “Can we see him now Mama, please please please!?”

“You must relax, Thor,” Frigga said with a smile. “You’re too excited, you may hurt him. Babies are fragile.”

Hela frowned at that. “You had another child?” she asks, unsure of how else to ask other than blunt and straight forward. She thinks over the last few months but can’t remember any sign or symptom that the Queen had been carrying. She remembers how large and ill Frigga had become when she was pregnant with Thor and yet she’s had none of those symptoms in the previous months.

Something odd flickers across Frigga’s face before her smile - albeit strained - is back on her face and she replies,

“Yes.”

Hela still feels confused, almost feels like she’s being lied to, but she approaches none the less as Frigga takes a seat in the rocking chair and Thor hopes up eagerly to her side.

“What’s his name?” Thor asked, bouncing in place as he stared down at the baby, Hela still hesitating just far away enough that she can’t catch a glimpse of the baby beyond the bundle.

“Loki,” Frigga replied. Hela stays where she is, watching Thor croon down to the baby before some sort of emotion wells within her and she turns and walks away.

She is not good with family. Never has been. She may be the eldest but that does not mean she is the favorite and certainly doesn’t mean she is the heir to the throne.

When he grows old enough, Thor will be king and Hela will be left with nothing. Although, Hella supposes, that isn’t true. She will at least be given control over Asgard’s army.

It is the new Prince Loki Odinson who will be given nothing.

…………………….

It has been three weeks since little Prince Loki was born - something Hela still cannot understand, yet she has been so busy acting as Odin’s executioner that she has not had time to question it - and the eldest royal still has not laid eyes upon the child. She does not need to though, she knows he will look the same as Thor. The same as Frigga and Odin.

Hela is and always will be the outcast and she does not need a new child to remind her of the fact.

It is early evening and she is sitting in her room, sharpening one of her blades, when there is a knock on the door and a servant enters, head bowed.

“Princess Hela,” she greets, giving a small curtsy. “You mother has requested your presence in the nursery.”

Hela sighed as she set her blade on her desk and stood, making her way out to the hall and down to the aforementioned room, wincing as she shifts her corset. Gowns and corsets have long since stopped being comfortable though Hela has yet to request permission to wear something else - trousers, perhaps - at least while within the palace.

For now, her legs are trapped within the dozens of layers of skirts and petticoats and her lungs are crushed beneath the wretched corset that she is certain even her mother does not wear.

“Hela,” Frigga greeted softly, the bundle of Loki in her arms, as it seems he always is. He does not cry though, at least not that Hela has heard. He’s unlike Thor, in that regard. He’s quiet, for a baby.

Like Hela was.

“Did you need something, mother?” Hela asked respectfully.

Her mother gazes at her softly. “Your father has requested I attend court with him in a few moments,” Frigga replied. “I was hoping you could care for Loki.”

Hela knows nothing of caring for children. “Mother-”

“Please,” Frigga said softly.

“Can’t Thor?”

“Thor is a child,” Frigga reminded her. “And he is out with his friends.”

“A servant, then-”

“Hela, why do you wish to avoid him?”

_ Because Thor is enough of a reminder of how different I am. _ Hela thought sourly.  _ Because I don’t need another little brother who looks like the perfect Aesir to remind me that I am not. _

“It’s...complicated.”

“It’s just for an hour,” The queen promised, even though they both know that the king’s meetings always run longer than he claims they will.

Hela sighs, knowing that it is expected of her. That she, truthfully, has little else to do. So nodding and resigning herself to over an hour of caring for a baby, she steps forward and accepts the bundle, not daring to gaze down upon the face of another perfect Aesir royal and instead keeping her attention on Frigga.

“Thank you,” Frigga told her, pressing a kiss to Hela’s forehead before turning and striding out of the nursery, closing the door quietly behind herself as Hela turns and takes a seat on the rocking chair.

With nothing else to do and no other way to avoid it, Hela finally looks down and gazes down at her new little brother for the first time since he was ‘born’ three weeks earlier.

Her heart stops in her chest, her lungs seem to stutter and pause and this time, not because of the corset. The baby is not what she expected. There are no blonde locks atop his head, nor sky blue eyes gazing out at her.

His hair is dark as a raven’s feather, eyes a piercing green where they stare up at her, curious. His skin is pale, matching her complexion in ways Hela did not think was possible. She can do nothing but sit and stare because the baby that stares up at her was not the baby she had been expecting.

Loki is nothing like Thor. Loki is nothing like Frigga or Odin or any other Aesir on Asgard.

But he is  _ everything _ like Hela. And for the first time since Thor was born, Hela is happy to have a little brother.

……………………….

When Thor had been born, Hela had been much too young to care for him on her own and for that she had been thankful as she’d wanted nothing to do with the new heir to the throne.

When she’d heard the decree that he would take her place one day as ruler of Asgard, she had shut herself away in her chambers and refused to come out for anyone for weeks until her father finally gave her the compromise of becoming his personal executioner.

It was stupid and they both knew it was a pathetic band aid but murder was what Hela was good at - she’d always been a violent child - and so she never complained and no one said anything about it.

When Loki was born, Hela was more than old enough to care for him on her own and after that very first night, she took every chance and excuse she could get to care for the baby. It was not hard for their realm to deny the love the Princess had for her youngest brother and there was no denying that Thor knew it too.

“Hela, will you play with me?” Thor asked from where he sat on the floor nearby, a few toys strewn out in front of him though he hadn’t touched them in several minutes, instead watching over where Hela was seated on the floor, watching little Loki clamber eagerly around the room. The young Prince had just recently learned how to crawl and needless to say, you needed to keep a constant eye on him or he’d crawl right out the room.

“Not now, Thor,” Hela replied dismissively as she reached over to pull Loki into her lap before he could mistakenly face plant on the carpet when his arms went out from beneath him. Thor made a pathetic noise, beating his legs against the floor in the beginnings of a tantrum.

“You  _ never _ play with me,” he whined. “You always play with Loki!”

“Well, perhaps Loki is more interesting than you are,” Hela declared, smiling down at the baby when he giggled and clapped his hands together, though it was unclear what exactly he was laughing at.

Thor crossed his arms over his chest with a huff. “That’s stupid,” he muttered. “He can’t even talk yet.”

“Well perhaps that’s why I prefer him,” Hela whispered, keeping her tone quiet to ensure Thor could not hear her while she brushed a hand through Loki’s hair, smiling when he reached up to grab her wrist, beginning to play with her slender fingers.

………………………..

In the years that followed, Loki grew quickly and before long he was a young child, happy and content and forever chasing hopelessly after a teen Thor and his friends. 

He was similar to Thor when the blonde had been that age and Hela’s hatred for Thor had been at its peak. But there were three things about him that kept Hela preferring Loki over the older Prince.

1: Loki did not talk  _ nearly _ as much as Thor did. 

In fact, the youngest prince almost seemed to prefer the silence over noise and could more often be found hidden in a dark corner of the library with a book rather than outside, bashing his friends over the head with wooden swords.

2: He was smart and clever.

Unlike his idiot of an older brother - and had taken to magic like Thor took to weaponry. He spent days on end, locked away in his room with Frigga as he mastered spell after spell after spell and though magic was often considered a ‘woman’s weapon’, there was no denying the pride in Odin’s eye when Loki was able to successfully summon beautiful green butterflies.

3: He loved Hela. 

Unlike Thor who instantly gravitated to his mother at the end of the daty, demanding her attention and insisting on sitting at her side at dinner, Loki would always quietly glide up to Hela, sitting next to her or simply, silently, taking her hand and saying nothing.

He preferred Hela and so Hela preferred him.

It’s a hot summer evening when Loki is older, a teen, and Hela is in her room in a loose fitting trousers. She had never truly asked nor gotten permission from either of her parents to stop wearing corsets or gowns but she was long since an adult and they had long since stopped giving her most of their attention.

That went to Thor.

She was lounging on the balcony, sharpening one of her blades, when she heard her door creak open. She paused, tilting her head towards the door, listening. When she heard nothing; no words, no clatter of cutlery, no footsteps, she allowed herself to smile as she looked down to put her knife away in its hidden sheath in her boot.

“Hello Loki,” she said, lifting her gaze back towards the vast landscape of Asgard just as her little brother steps up beside her.

He says nothing but Hela had expected that. Together, they gaze out over the city before Loki quietly speaks.

“May I ask you a question?”

Loki is like Hela. He has black hair and green eyes and green and black are his favorite and preferred colors. He uses knives as his primary weapons and is lithe and agile where their brother is gruff and aggressive.

“Of course,” Hela replied, turning her gaze towards him though he continues to look out over the city. “What’s on your mind, little brother?”

Loki stays quiet - he does that a lot. Asks if he can ask a question, then waits. Hela knows why. Often Loki will ask if he can speak but soon after being given permission - by his teacher or Odin or Thor - it is revoked and he is sent away without the listener every caring for what he might have to say.

Hela has never been like them. Hela has always listened. But habits formed by neglect and abuse are hard to break and so Hela does not try. 

So she waits and is soon rewarded by her patience when Loki softly asks, “Why are we different?”

Truthfully, Hela does not know. She suspects why Loki is different - Frigga bore no signs of pregnancy before Loki appeared and thus he cannot be her son - but Hela cannot say why she is different. Perhaps a different mother - she knows Frigga is not her biological mother but she does not remember the women and has only ever known Frigga - but that still wouldn't explain.

She and Loki do not come from the same mother nor father, yet they are more similar to one another than Hela and Thor who  _ do _ share a father. Why they are different from the other royals yet so similar to one another, Hela doesn’t know.

Young as he is, there is no denying Loki’s affinity for lies. Both in wielding them and unveiling them. Hela has watched many attempt to lie to the young prince’s face and all were torn apart as he declared their statement to be false.

But Hela does not lie, not to Loki, and that draws the young prince to her even more.

So she told the truth. “I don’t know,” she said. “But that makes us special, I think.”

Loki shifts, lowering his head before he whispered, “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be normal. I want to be like mother and father and Thor.”

And oh, but if Hela doesn’t know that feeling as well as she knows the weight of her blades. That is something she has craved ever since she was a little girl and a peasant called her a beast. That is something she has craved ever since she was cleverly gifted the title of ‘goddess of death’.

It’s a fitting title now, but it is not something you should ever tell a child, for children are impressionable and things like that leave a mark.

A permanent one.

“Come here, my little Silvertongue,” Hela murmured, opening her arms for Loki to climb into her lap, using the name she had long since gifted them when she’d learned his way with words, how he could spin simple sentences into beautiful poetry. He complies silently, curling into her lap and allowing her to stroke his hair the way she has seen Frigga do before.

“There are lies around me,” Loki mumbled abruptly, drawing a frown from Hela. She pulled back slightly, looking down at him though he did not lift his head from her shoulder.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I noticed it a few years ago,” Loki admitted. “When father speaks to me. Whenever he speaks words of how I am his son, when he refers to me as Prince of Asgard…” he trails off and

Hela feels concern well in her veins for her favorite brother. “What is it?”

Loki shrugged. “I can’t explain it,” he murmured. “But his words mark me as wrong. It’s not a feeling so much as those words ring  _ wrong _ in my mind.” Loki finally looked up at Hela, green eyes piercing into her own as he added, “I do not think I am of Asgard and I do not think I am an Odinson.”


	2. Loki's Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is king and for the first time ever, Hela wishes he had never been born.
> 
> Loki was meant to have nothing. Hela had her army, Thor had Asgard, Loki was meant to have nothing.

**2011 - Asgard**

She can’t find Loki. She can’t find Loki and she’s terrified, because ever since Thor’s banishment Loki has been...something has been  _ wrong _ with Loki. Ever since her brothers and Thor’s friends returned from their ill-advised trip to Jotunheim, Loki has been quiet and withdrawn, even from her.

She’s wandering the halls in search of her little Liesmith when, distantly, she hears a scream of ‘tell me!’, though she thinks nothing of it. Shouts are common in the palace as Loki and Odin’s relationship has grown strained over the previous months. Another side effect, she assumes, of Thor’s banishment. With a sigh, Hela picks up speed as she heads in the direction of her little brother’s shout.

As she approaches the relic room, however, she hears Loki’s voice again, this time terrified and on the brink of tears, the sound tearing at her heart.

“Guards! Guards, please, help!”

That is Loki and he sounds more scared than she has ever heard him before and she doesn’t think as she breaks into a sprint, following the guards into the room and-

Their father is unconscious on the steps and Loki is several steps down, terror and tears in his eyes as he stares, helpless, watching the guards gather the king and carry him away. As soon as they’re gone, Hela rushes to her brother’s side.

“Loki?” she asked, cupping his face between her hands when he fails to look up at his name. “My Silvertongue, can you hear me?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Loki asked, voice breaking. “What’s happening, what-what did I do?”

Hela has seen this once before, she knows the terror Loki is feeling and perhaps he is the reason she isn’t feeling quite so frightened this time.

“It is an Odinsleep,” she explained gently, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, pondering at how he seemed to briefly recoil from her touch for a moment, before giving in and allowing her to guide him out of the room. “It’s purpose is so he can recharge his power.”

“Did I do it to him?”

“No, my Silvertongue,” Hela soothed, brushing his hair out of his face. “It’s perfectly normal.”

“Hela! Loki!”

“Mother,” Loki whispered, though he made no move towards the queen when she rushed to them. “Is father-”

“They’re getting him into bed now,” Frigga said.

“Can we…” Hela looks over at her brother. He’s shaking. Something’s wrong, something happened between he and Odin just a few moments ago, but she knows he’s not ready to talk about it. Not yet. “Can we see him?”

Frigga seems to hesitate for a moment before nodding and guiding them through the golden halls of the palace.

………………………………

Loki is quiet at her side. He and Hela sit by their father’s bed, their mother on the other side, and Loki will not say a word. Frigga attempted to bring him into conversation, to tell him that his father’s state was not his fault, but Loki neither speaks nor lifts his head.

Hela is unsure how long they sit there before Loki finally murmurs, “I am tired.” and stands without another word towards them. He’s nearing the steps to the door when they open with a boom. A row of Einherjar stand on the other side though at the sight of Loki, they drop to a knee with a hand on their chest.

Hela stands, ready to defend, but Frigga lifts a hand to stop her as a man rounds the corner with Gungir in hand.

“Mother...” Hela murmured, though she did not finish as the man enters the room and kneels before Loki, offering the prince the weapon. Loki seems just as confused as Hela because he turns helplessly to Frigga who straightens and explains in a strong, confident voice,

“Thor is banished. The line of succession falls to you. Until Odin awakens, Asgard is yours.”

_ No _ . Hela thinks as Loki slowly turns and takes Gungnir into his hands, the tears still in his eyes though there is no denying the sudden  _ greed  _ lurking behind.  _ No, this isn’t  _ fair _! Asgard should go to Hela, not her little brother! Not her little brother who seems to shake, who looks on the brink of breaking down. _

_ Who has never wanted the throne in the first place, not the way Hela has. _

She balls her hands into fists and chokes down her anger as Loki slowly turns towards them and Frigga whispers,

“Make your father proud, my king.”

Loki is king and for the first time ever, Hela wishes he had never been born.

Loki was meant to have nothing. Hela had her army, Thor had Asgard, Loki was meant to have  _ nothing _ .

But things have changed and it seems that once again, Hela has been left behind to rot.

  
  


………………………..

Something was happening to Loki. It was Gungnir or the strain of ruling or  _ something _ but he was changing.

Her Silvertongue was changing and not in a good way. Hela had noticed earlier that day, when she’d been seated on the steps of the throne - standing as King’s advisor at Loki’s request - when Sif and The Warriors Three had come to request that Thor’s banishment be ended.

And what was Loki’s reply?

“My first command cannot be to undo the All-father’s last.” 

Her sweet little brother had never wanted the throne, not once in his entire childhood. So why now, that he had the power, was he refusing to bring back the only person who could free him from the burdon of ruling? He had spent weeks complaining, wishing Thor was there so he could take the throne. Yet now he refused when the offer was laid at his very feet?

Why?

If that wasn’t bad enough, his next words made Hela frightened for the state of his mind. She had worried for his mind since the Frost Giants had invaded the palace in an attempt to steal the Winter Casket - something she knew without proof or a shadow of a doubt that he had caused - but the next words that came from him turned those worries into fear.

“We are at war with Jotunheim. Our people need a sense of continuity, in order to feel safe in these difficult times. All of us must stand together for the good of Asgard.”

For the good of Asgard. No, something wasn’t right. Something was wrong with Loki and whatever it was, it would not end with the good of Asgard.

Something was happening to Loki and it was not going to end with him still standing.

……………….

There were Frost Giants in the palace.

King Laufey of Jotunheim was in the palace and he was heading towards where father lay weak and defenseless, the only one there to protect him being mother who bore nothing at her hand but flimsy magic, useless against a Frost Giant King.

Hela’s boots beat loudly against the floor as she sprints down the halls as fast as she can, panicked at the sounds of shouts and fighting. But when she arrives at the room, she is shocked to find father perfectly fine, an Aesir shaped hole in the wall, and ashes on the floor.

“Hela!”

She turned as her mother raced towards her, terror in her eyes as she gripped her step-daughter’s arm.

“Mother?” Hela asked, placing her own hands on Frigga’s. “What is it, what’s wrong? Where’s Laufey, what...what happened?”

“It’s Loki, he’s gone...somethings  _ wrong _ ,” Frigga replied. Because even now, even through Loki’s twisted rule, she would never call him  _ mad _ . “He killed Laufey.”

Hela’s eyes went wide. “Where is he?”

“He’s on the bifrost. He’s going to destroy Jotunheim!”

“What?” Hela whispered, numb at the knowledge and unable to picture her happy little brother filled with murderous rage. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Frigga replied. “Thor has gone to stop him, but... _ please,  _ Hela, you’re the only one he’ll listen to! Stop him before he goes too far!”

“I will,” Hela whispered. “I will save him, you have my word.”

……………………………..

She can hear them. As far away as she is, unable to even see the bifrost where she is, she can hear them so plainly, so easily. It’s the magic, she knows. The Seidr spell Loki had taught her in his adolescence, one that binds them so that - in times of high emotion such as anger or fear - they can hear the other and seek them out. 

For the first time ever, she wishes they couldn’t. 

The rage in Loki’s voice tears her apart.

“I’ve changed,” Thor says. It’s calm, cool. The voice of a true leader.

“So have I,” Loki replied. It’s quiet, yes, but said in a cold and mocking tone, a moment before Thor grunts, as though struck, before Loki whispers, “Now fight me.”

Hela’s heart stops in her chest and she flinches atop Fenrir at the sound of a body being thrown across the dome and she is unsure of who it is until she hears Loki shout in a dark and twisted growl, 

“I never wanted the throne!”

Oh god, what has happened to her little brother? He goes on in a quieter voice, unaware or uncaring that Hela can hear yet breaking her heart with every word as he hisses, “I only ever wanted to be your equal.”

And how true is that? How many years as Loki spent running after Thor, fighting to fit in with his big brother and his friends? No matter how similar he and Hela are, no matter how close the two outcasts have become, Loki will always crave Thor’s approval.

Because it is the only one he does not have.

“I will not fight you, brother!” Thor screams.

Loki’s reply is cold and cutting, said almost before Thor has even finished speaking and meant to cut deeply into the receiver.

“I am not your brother. I never was.”

……………………….

She does not make it in time to see the fight between Thor and Loki. She does not make it in time to see the bifrost explode, though she feels the ripple and can almost see it beyond the tops of the city as it destroys their only way to the other realms.

But she does make it in time to see a sight that will haunt her for the rest of her days.

Odin - however he arrived before she - is kneeling on the bifrost, hand wrapped tightly around Thor where he hangs off the edge of the broken bridge. And as Hela dismounts Fenrir and rushes to her father’s aid, she sees Thor holding tightly to the neck of Gungnir while Loki clings to the end, terror in his eyes as he gazed up at them, hanging limp and defenseless over the void.

He looks terrified, desperate, as he shouts, “I could have done it father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!”

And Odin’s reply, no louder than a whisper, is a simple, “No Loki.”

Hela thinks that’s the end. That Odin will pull her brothers up and she will bundle Loki into her chest and whisk him far away from this madness until he is ready to talk about whatever he has faced to bring him to this moment.

But Odin makes no move to bring her brothers back to solid ground and Hela can only watch as a sort of determination appears on Loki’s face. A look of grim acceptance and failure.

She prays she’s wrong, that what she thinks he’s about to do isn’t what about to happen.

But Thor’s broken plea of, “Loki,  _ no _ .” is enough to settle the fear in her stomach and she can only watch, helpless, as Loki lets go and  _ falls _ , Thor’s cry of “ _ no _ ” drowned out in Hela’s own pure scream of terror.

“No,” Odin whispered and  _ oh _ but Hela wants to kill him in that moment. 

She squeezed her eyes closed and stepped back as Odin slowly hauled Thor to the bridge and it’s only once they’re both back on stable ground that Hela feels safe enough to whisper,

“How could you?” Odin and Thor do not look to her but she doesn’t care, pouring all her rage and fear and grief into her voice as she screams, “How could you!?”

“Enough,” Odin said, tone quiet yet no less powerful.

“You could have pulled him up!” she screams, voice breaking in her rage. She feels her power surge beneath her veins and knows she is stronger than he, in that moment. Knows that she is powerful enough to slaughter this king before her without batting an eye. “You could have  _ saved _ him! How could you have just sat there while he-”

“I said,  _ enough _ !” Odin roared, lurching to his feet and striking Hela across the face, sending her skidding across what’s left of the bifrost. She gasped when she landed, one hand fluttering to her cheek and eyes welling with tears - more in surprise than hurt - as she looked up and towards Odin, watching the man she once called father helping Thor to his feet.

Thor. The golden son. The  _ perfect _ son.

“He could still be alive,” Thor whispered, staring off into The Void. “There’s still a chance, Heimdall can-”

“No one survives The Void, Thor.”

“No,” Thor whispered. “No, he’s alive!” his voice broke on the last word. “He’s still alive, please, he has to be!”

“His fate is up to the Norns, now.”

And Odin doesn’t have to tell him that the Norns have never been kind to Loki. Hela slowly gets to her feet, avoiding Odin’s gaze as he passes her. He ignores her and Hela growls softly, looking up when Thor comes to a stop in front of her.

“You’ve always been so close to him.” he’s pleading her for something but she can’t even begin to guess what that might be until he goes on. “Surely you can feel him. Surely you know where he is.”

Hela opened her mouth to tell him that it was his fault Loki had fallen, before going still. Thor is right. She’s always been close to Loki and, if she concentrates, there’s always been a sort of bundle of nerves inside of her that seem to light when it comes to Loki.

So she nods and closes her eyes, concentrating. Distantly, she can hear Odin riding off on that stupid eight legged horse of his, but she ignores it and pours all of her concentration into that little bundle of nerves that ties her to Loki.

She feels nothing. Where once there was electricity and power and movement, now there is nothing but a cold, calm,  _ peace. _ She opens her eyes slowly and looks up at Thor who watches her, frantic and desperate.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t...there’s nothing.”

“No,” Thor whispered. “No, there has to be something.”

Hela doesn’t know what to say, can’t comfort him when she’s hurting too, but she is able to offer a short,

“Mother is a stronger seidr weilder than I, perhaps...perhaps she can help.”

“Heimdall can see,” Thor whispered. “They’ll find Loki and they’ll bring him back.”

Hela doesn’t say this, but she truthfully dosen’t think there’s going to be any sort of ‘Loki’ to bring back. In truth, she does not think the Loki that returned from Thor’s attempted conquest of Jotunheim so long ago was even their Loki at all.

But she says nothing and merely nods, heading over to Fenrir where the wolf sits and waits, watching. She moves to mount him but is stopped by Thor’s broad hand on her shoulder.

“Something happened while I was away,” he said. It’s not a question. He’s not asking her. He doesn’t have to. His fight with Loki has proven the answer to be yes. Still, Hela nods.

“Yes.”

“What?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Do not lie,” Thor growled, his hand tightening on her shoulder in a way that would boarder on painful if not for her armor. “You and Loki have been close in ways I cannot ever hope to be. You know him better than even mother, perhaps even better than he knows himself. So tell me what  _ happened _ to my brother.”

She shoves his arm away and turns to face her, fury burning in her eyes. “I tell the truth when I say I do not  _ know _ , Thor,” she growled. “He and father fought the day father went into the Odinsleep. I don’t know what about and I don’t know  _ why _ . Father gave him Asgard and he  _ changed _ . I cannot tell you what drove him to kill Laufey nor can I tell you why he felt the need to destroy Jotunheim. Loki changed, yes, but believe me when I say I do. Not. Know.”

Thor still looked angry but the fact of the matter was that he was not Loki. He was not Hela’s precious Silvertongue who could discern and unravel lies without ever batting a eye. Hela had always meant to ask him how he knew, how he could tell.

Now she’d never get the chance.

……………………………….

Mere hours after Loki’s fall, Hela and Thor found themselves in the throne room, their father seated upon the throne as their mother stood nearby. When they looked to her, unsure of why they were there, she merely shook her head.

Whether she didn’t know or couldn’t tell them, Hela was unsure.

“In the aftermath of Loki’s fall, I have realized something dire,” Odin said where he sat, gripping Gungnir. “Hela Odinsdottir, approach.”

Hela frowned, shooting Frigga a curious look before she slowly ascended the first set of stairs, kneeling before at the base of the second.

“It has been brought to my attention,” Odin began, single eye hard and unwavering as he stared down at Hela. “That you and Loki are similar in near every way.”

Hela narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Had he seriously spent the last dozen centuries, blind to what she and Loki had in common?

“We are,” she confirmed tentatively when it was clear he was waiting for something even though he hadn’t asked a question.

“You have gifted Loki knives on several occasions.”

“Yes.”

“And you have previously shown yourself to be unstable when taken by anger. Unpredictable.”

Hela’s eyes went wide and she jerked to her feet as she snarled, “You cannot  _ truly _ believe what happened to Loki is  _ my _ fault!”

“Whether or not you lead him to this madness, I cannot say,” Odin replied, tone calm and cool and unaffected. “But I cannot deny your similarities.”

“Get to the  _ point _ , Borson,” Hela snarled, ignoring her mother’s soft call of her voice. She knew she’d be punished for her disrespect but she didn’t  _ care. _ Her little brother had just fallen into the void before her eyes while Odin watched and did  _ nothing _ . She no longer had any care for respect towards the bastard in front of her.

Odin’s single eye widened before he stood and slammed Gungir against the floor. “Hela Odinsdottir. You stand as a reminder of the traitor of this realm. You are unworthy,” he went on in a low, cold voice. “Of these realms. Of your title. Of the loved ones you may one day betray.”

“Father! No!” Thor shouts from somewhere behind her. She hears his feet but knows he is stopped by the guard. Her heart stops in her chest because her brother’s reaction is all she needs to hear to know what’s about to happen to her.

“Father,” Hela said softly. “Please. Don’t do this. I’ve already lost Loki, please don’t send me away. Please don’t take everything away from me.”

Odin seems not to hear her, tone still cold and uncaring as he goes on. “I now take from you your power. In the name of my father and his father before. I Odin All-father cast you out into a realm that shall remain your prison for the rest of your existence.”

As a portal opened behind her and Hela felt herself falling into it, she let out an earsplitting scream, summoning a blade at the last moment and flinging it towards the king in a last ditch effort to slaughter the true traitor before her.

The portal closed around her before she was able to see if she’d hit her mark.


	3. In A Prison of Her Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She felt a heartbeat that wasn’t her own. One that she knew could only have come from one person.
> 
> Loki.
> 
> "Where are you, Loki?" She wondered, grasping desperately at their connection. “Midgard? Really little brother? What interest does Midgard hold to you?”

**2012 - Unknown**

She had been meditating, something she hadn’t done in a long time, when she felt it. A beat, like a heartbeat, somewhere inside her being. She opened her eyes, staring around her prison, flexing her fingers which had just recently healed from where they’d broken several days earlier.

She felt the beat again, picking up, and hissed as her own heart sped up as well to accommodate the sudden adrenaline flowing through her, despite the fact she sat still and calm.

Growling at whoever dared to cut into her peace, Hela pushed herself to her feet, summoning two blades as she slowly spun, a frown appearing on her face when she found no one but herself.

But she had felt a heartbeat, one that wasn’t her own. And if it wasn’t her own, then whose could it possibly-

Hela’s eyes went wide, mind racing. The injuries, the pain, the  _ torture _ she had spent the last dozen months getting the after effects of. The sudden heartbeat followed by more pain, it could only have come from one person.

Loki.

She felt her breathing speed up as she was filled with hope that perhaps her little brother was well and alive. Or, at least alive, because based on the injuries she had felt over the last near year, there was no way her little brother was well.

He had never been able to handle pain, not the way she could. He had once mistakenly put his hand into a rose bush and run sobbing to their mother, insisting that he was dying.

Of course, in his defense, Thor had informed him that he had mere hours left to live, so perhaps it wasn’t wholly Loki’s faut that he overreacted.

Drawing herself back to the present, Hela strode over to the wall of her prison, placing her hand flat against it as she closed her eyes, concentrating on Loki’s seidr as she whispered,

“Where are you, little brother?”

His seidr connection went through the void, that much Hela had been expecting, and continued onwards before it came to a stop at,

“Midgard?” Hela drawled, disgust in her voice as she opened her eyes and scowled at the wall in front of her. “Really little brother? What interest does Midgard hold to you?”

Shaking her head, Hela fully straightened her arm as she poured the entirety of her concentration into her brother’s connection, breathing evenly as she closed her eyes and focused on his voice, desperate to hear what had drawn him to a place as pathetic as Midgard. The voice of a male Midgardian drew her in.

“What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” 

_ No, but I am not overly fond of what follows.  _ Hela mused to herself, just as Loki replied,

“I’m not overly fond of what follows.” At that, she allowed herself to smile. It seems even now, she knew her brother quite well, even after all these years.

She seemed to have missed quite a lot while in thought because she was startled back to the connection by the sound of Loki groaning, followed by her brother giving a strained laugh.

“Where is the tesseract?” Ah, now Hela understood. Of course, lovely Prince Thor, father’s favorite son, had come to beat up little brother.

How Hela wished to snap his neck.

Loki laughed, sounding more like himself than he had in a long time as he fondly replied,

“I missed you too!”

“Do I look to be in a gaming mood?” Thor demanded.  _ No, because you never are. _

“Oh, you should thank me,” Loki replied. “With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to  _ conjure _ you here? To your  _ precious _ Earth.”

A thud, the sounds of grunting and a scuffle, brief pain and discomfort racing through the connection before Thor said in a low tone,

“I thought you dead.”

“Did you mourn?” Loki’s voice held no emotion, no care. Monotone and empty and lifeless.

Just like his eyes as he’d fallen from the bifrost.

“We all did,” Thor replied. “Our father-”

_ Now  _ there was tone to Loki’s voice. Anger and resentment filling Hela and making her skin tingle as Loki quietly remarked,

“ _ Your  _ father. He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?”

Hela frowned. True parentage? What was Loki talking about? He was father and mother’s son, just as Hela and Thor-

_ Frigga bore no signs of pregnancy.  _ Hela’s eyes went wide with realization. She had always suspected that Loki was not from Frigga. That he was not her true blood brother, but to have it confirmed was-

“We were  _ raised _ together,” Thor insisted. “We played together, we  _ fought _ together. Do you remember none of that?”

“I remember a shadow,” Loki quietly replied. “Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an  _ abyss _ .”

No, no no  _ no _ . Thor did not toss, Loki, her little Liesmith had let go.  _ He _ had been the one to embrace the void, Thor had had no active part in her brother’s fall.

Hela felt sorrow and rage coil into her belly. Someone had been in her little brother’s head. Someone had been inside his mind, twisting and warping his thoughts to turn him against his family.

Hela had been there, she’d seen and  _ watched _ as Loki had  _ let. Go. _ of Gungir and fallen into the abyss.

Thor had not tossed him.

“I who was and  _ should _ be king,” Loki declared.

“So you take the world I love as a recompense for your imagined slights?”

_ Thor, you idiot. Don’t do this, don’t make him angry. See things from his side, stop being the instigator. Imagine this from Loki’s side,  _ please _! Be the older sibling, I will never be again! _

“No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki.”

Loki began to laugh. “And you’re doing a  _ marvelous _ job with that. The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly fret. I mean to  _ rule _ them. That’s why, should I not-”

“You think yourself above them.” this time it was Thor’s voice to be cold and empty. 

“Well yes,” Loki replied, his confusion filling Hela.

“Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother. A throne would suit you ill.”

Loki’s rage spiked so fast Hela felt dizzy with it. “I’ve seen worlds you’ve never known about!” he declared loudly. “I have grown, Odin _ son _ , in my exile. I have seen the true power of the Tesseract and when I wield it-”

“Who showed you this power?” Thor demanded. “Who controls the would be king?”

“I am a King!” Loki screamed.

“Not here!” Thor shouted back and Hela’s shoulders jolted where she had no doubt that Thor had grabbed their little brother. “You give up the Tesseract, you give up this  _ poisonous _ dream!” Thor was silent for a moment but when he spoke again, he sounded near tears. “You come home.”

Loki laughed softly. “I don’t have it.”

_ Have what?  _ Hela wondered.  _ A home or-oh _ .  _ The Tesseract. _

“You need the cube to bring me home,” Loki said calmly, though Hela had no doubt he was currently facing an enraged Thor wielding that stupid hammer. “But I’ve sent it off, I know not where.”

_ Liar. Sweet little Liesmith, always so good at bending the truth in your favor. But you will not benefit in this moment. Please, my silvertongue, tell him the truth. _

“You listen well, brother. I-”

Hela flinched at the sound of something metallic cut Thor off before Loki said, “I’m listening.”

She was thrown so abruptly from the connection that her head spun and she collapsed.

……………………………..

Hela could not tell how long she spent fighting to find a way back inside her brother’s mind but when she finally was able to re-open the connection. But before she could hear anything, she had to yank her arm away from the wall with a shout, bending over as she clutched her head, fighting against the force she felt trying to fight its way inside. She growled, clawing at her scalp.

“Get out,” she snarled. “Now!”

She gasped, legs buckling beneath her, when the pain vanished as soon as it had arrived, but not before it had shown her a moment she would never forget.

Her little brother, beaten and broken and bruised, at the feet of the one called The Mad Titan, the man standing over Loki’s form with a look of confidence in his eyes.

“What have you done?” Hela growled, even though the connection had broken and The Mad Titan could not hear her. “What did you do to my little brother?”

Forcing herself to her feet, determined now to find what was happening to her little brother, Hela placed her hand back on the wall and this time used her own - albeit weak - seidr to guard her mind as she returned to Loki’s listening intently to his conversation..

“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity.” Hela shivered,

gritting her teeth when the forgein entity inside her brother’s mind attempted once more to get into hers. Whatever was inside of Loki, whatever had hold of him, it was determined to get inside of her too.

She had no intentions of letting it. So she shoved it aside with all her might, concentrating solely on her brother and whomever he spoke to.

“Uh, actually I’m planning to threaten you,” a new voice replied. No doubt a Midgardian, though Hela accounted them a fool for thinking they could threaten her brother. Loki on his own was powerful but Loki under the control of another?

There would be no stopping him.

“You should’ve let your armor on for that.” It was definitely a Midgardian Loki was talking to, then. Only a human would be so stupid as to face her little brother without protection.

“Yeah,” the Midgardian replied, sounding almost  _ bored _ . “Seen a bit of mileage and you’ve got the uh, glow stick of destiny.”

Hela pulled back slightly at that, a frown on her face.  _ Glow stick of destiny?  _ She wondered. She was unsure of what it was, unable to see it through her brother’s mind yet painfully aware of the power it held over Loki’s control.

Whatever it was, it was  _ dangerous _ and her brother was doing nothing to fight it.

_ What have they done to you, my sweet little silvertongue? _

“Would you like a drink?” the Midgaridan asked.

“Stalling me won’t change anything,” Loki replied.

“No, no, threatening,” the Midgardian corrected him. “No drink, you sure? I’m having one.”

“The Chitauri are coming,” her brother declared. “Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?”

Hela’s eyes widened at the reveal. The Chitauri were the ones behind her brother’s mind control? But no, that wouldn’t make sense. Hela had seen her brother kneeling - unwilling and in chains - at the feet of The Mad Titan, yet the Chitauri were the ones in control? No, they were just soldiers. A brainless army, nothing more.

The Chitauri served The Mad Titan and Hela had no doubt that he was the man behind her brother’s possession. She growled, digging her nails into the wall as she forced herself to tune back into the conversation.

“The Avengers,” the Midgardian replied casually, as though that word meant anything to Hela. Or Loki, or The Mad Titan, or Chitauri, or anyone other than the Midgardian himself. Yet he said it so casually, as though it was as normal a word as Yggdrasil.

Through the connection The Mad Titan had on Loki, Hela was able to sense her brother’s confusion at the word as well and she heard The Midgardian sigh before he explained,

“It’s what we call ourselves.” he sounded as unimpressed with the word as Hela did. “Like a team. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, type thing.” 

“Yes,” her brother said. “I’ve met them.”

“Yeah,” The Midgardian said, his tone giving Hela the impression of a sort of condescending scoff. “Takes us awhile to get any traction, I’ll give you that one. But, let’s do a head count here. Your brother, the demigod. A super-soldier, a living legend who, kind of lives up to the legend. A man with  _ breathtaking _ anger management issues.” Hela felt Loki’s amusement peak at that one and even she had to admit, she was curious as to who this man was. The Midgaridan went on. “Couple of master assassins and  _ you _ , big fella. You’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”

“That was the plan.”

“Not a great plan.” Even Hela had to agree with the Midgardian on that point. If she hadn’t been sure that Loki was no in control of himself, she would certainly be sure now. All their lives, Loki had  _ always _ been a brilliant strategist and planner. His mind was rivaled by none on Asgard or any other realm and yet at The Mad Titan’s command, he was nothing more than a child throwing a temper tantrum.

She wondered if The Mad Titan knew about Loki’s magic, about just how powerful her brother was.

She doubted it.

“When they come,” The Midgardian said, presumably talking about his team. “And they will, they’ll come for you.”

“I have an army.”

“We have a Hulk.”

_ A what? _ Hela thought, frowning. What in the Nine Realms was a  _ Hulk _ ? If this was the man with anger management issues, then by the Norns, Hela would need him when she broke free to slaughter Odin.

“Oh, I thought the beast had wondered off,” Loki said. He didn’t sound scared and through the connection, Hela could feel The Mad Titan’s confidence. She wondered what he’d do to Loki if his attempt to take over Midgard was successful.

She wondered what he’d to do Loki if it failed.

“Y-you're missing the point, there’s no  _ throne _ .” Hela’s stomach clenched at that, her brother’s voice still echoing in her mind after all these years.

_ I never wanted the throne! _ Truly, The Mad Titan knew nothing of Loki and her brother was now nothing more than a puppet, dangling from his master’s hand. 

It made her sick.

“There is no version of this where you come out on top.” the Midgardian sounded angry now. Hela assumed they’d reached the threatening part of the conversation. “ _ Maybe _ your army comes and  _ maybe _ it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Cause if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.”

Ah. Now Hela understood his team name. She wondered if Loki did. She wondered if Loki knew anything at all or if The Mad Titan’s control over her brother was too strong.

A wash of The Titan’s control went through her brother, tingling Hela’s arms where she was still connected, and she stilled when she heard her brother’s voice, now cold and empty.

“How will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you.”

She felt power grow around her brother and assumed that must be ‘the glow stick of destiny’. The connection was silent and the power vanished, returning against for a brief moment before vanishing again, leaving Hela and The Mad Titan confused.

“This usually works,” she heard and  _ that  _ was Loki’s voice. That was not The Mad Titan, that was not Loki under his control. That. Was. Loki. How he’d broken free of the control, she didn’t know, but she had no doubt it would not last.

“Well, performance issues, you know,” the Midgardian listed, not sounding terrified in the slightest. “Not uncommon, one out of five.”

She heard him grunt, felt the wave of fury through the connection and wondered with slight glee if the Midgardian regretted his somewhat confusing comment.

“You will all fall before me,” her brother snarled, his voice gravelly and broken as The Mad Titan flooded the connection with rage and fury.

“Deploy!” the Midgardian shouted. “Deploy!”

Shattering glass and a shout was what Hela heard next and by The Mad Titan’s pleasure racing through the control, she figured Loki must have thrown the Midgardian out of a window.

Something powered up and a moment later, Hela heard Loki’s shout of pain before he was no doubt thrown to the floor. Her eyes went wide and she dug her heels into the ground as something rushed through the connection again.

A scout, she guessed.. The Mad Titan must have realized someone was listening in and had sent a scout to find and either kill or control. But Hela was stronger and she easily slaughtered it before it could reach her, desperation making madness flow through her veins as she listened in near panic to hear the state of her brother.

“And there’s one other person you pissed off.” Hela heard suddenly. She frowned because it sounded like the Midgardian, yet the voice was far more mechanical than before. “His name is Phil.”

She heard some sort of powering up noise a moment before Loki cried out in pain and agony raced through her body.

She ended the connection herself this time.

……………………….

She returned some time later, feeling guilty but unable to stay away when she knew her brother was fighting Midgard while under the control of The Mad Titan and no doubt, deeply unaware of what he was doing

Precably, the moment she made the connection, she heard Thor’s angry shout of, 

“Loki! Turn off the Tesseract, or I’ll destroy it.”

“You can’t,” Loki replied. “There is no stopping it. There is only...the war.”

“So be it.”

Loki yet out a yell at that and Hela heaved a sigh as her little brothers began fighting. She shouldn’t have been surprised. If there was one thing The Mad Titan had gotten correct about Loki, it was that the youngest Odinson -although he was not truly an Odinson, was he? - would never miss a chance to fight his big brother.

The fight went on for several more moments before the connection was suddenly jarred as though Loki had been grabbed, before Thor shouted,

“Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?”

Hela’s lips parted when she realized she didn’t feel The Mad Titan. When all she felt was Loki’s own shock and horror and fear. Somehow her little brother had broken free from the man’s hold and all Hela could hope was that he could stay free long enough to stop his attack.

“It’s too late.” her little silvertongue sounded so broken and Hela’s rage for Odin grew, knowing the fault for her brother’s madness lay on the King’s shoulders alone. “It’s too late to stop it.”

“No. we can, together,” Thor pleaded.

Hela felt the moment The Mad Titan regained control, a moment before Thor grunted, as if in pain, and Loki said,

“Sentiment.”

She ended the connection again as her fury built into an earsplitting scream.

………………………

Hours on hours, Hela paced before finally returning to the wall of her prison. Her brother was waging war on Midgard and she needed to hear, needed to know what was happening. The last time she had tuned in, he and Thor had fought and Loki had broken free just briefly before The Mad Titan took control again.

But Hela knew Loki was still in there, perhaps somewhere deep down, and she had to listen again, had to find out where the battle ended.

“Enough!” she heard Loki shout as soon as she made the connection. “You are, all of you, beneath me! I am a god, you dull creature. And I will not be bullied by-”

Hela let out a scream as her body was overtaken by sudden, agonizing pain as though she was being slammed into the ground again, and again, and again.

Loki’s weak whine was the last thing she heard before the connection broke.

She did not try to open it again.


	4. Return of The Fallen Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How does it feel, brother, to be unwanted by the ones you considered family?”
> 
> “Shut up. Stop talking.”
> 
> “And you know what’s even better? I am not even Asgardian.”

**2012 - Asgard**

When Loki returned to Asgard at Thor’s side, he expected a trial. He expected to be executed on sight or perhaps given a death sentence, maybe thrown in the dungeons for the rest of his neverending existence.

He did not expect for his father - no, not his father.  _ Odin _ \- to order the guards away before rushing - yes, the great and mighty King Odin  _ rushed _ \- down the stairs of the throne and pulling Loki into a hug.

Yes. A hug. Not a strangle or a stab or any other attempt at murder. A hug. An embrace. Whatever other word you may choose to use, Odin did it.

“My son,” Odin whispered as he stepped back, cupping Loki’s face in his hands while Loki stared, shocked and confused. “I am so sorry.”

Loki opened his mouth to reply; to snap, or shout, or snark. To say  _ something _ that would not let this man think all was forgiven, to let this man know the God before him - no, the  _ frost giant _ before him - still despised his very existence.

But no words, no sound came out and Loki was left staring and gaping as Odin stepped back, that sorrowful and pitiful look in his eyes as he moved aside and-

“Mother,” Loki whispered, finding his voice as Frigga approached, the glimmer of tears in her eyes as she rushed to embrace him, Loki’s cuffed hands coming up of their own accord to curl slender fingers in her gown.

“Take these off,” Frigga whispered once she had released him, staring down at the chains in disgust before turning to Odin, fury burning in her eyes as her voice rang out across the throne room. “Take them off  _ now _ !”

Odin gave a small shake of his head and Loki’s stomach drops as the king calls for the guards. He should have known. He should have  _ known, _ he should have stayed cold and cocky and maybe this wouldn’t hurt so bad as the guards arrive to throw him in the dungeon.

He’s tired. His head hurts. He doesn’t think he’s had even a moment to rest since before Him. Since before he fell from the Bifrost. Since before... _ hell _ , since his attempt to ruin Thor’s coronation.

Thor,  _ norns _ , the oaf if still in the room watching, isn’t he? As the guards approach, Loki chances a subtle glance towards his once-brother, expecting a look of success, of a victor. Perhaps a sneer or a look of disdain that Loki has long since grown used to seeing thrown his way.

But instead he only sees blue eyes filled with sadness, with remorse. 

Why? 

Loki just attempted to take over his precious Midgard -  _ that wasn’t me, that wasn’t me, that wasn’t  _ me! - and slaughter an entire race. Why would Thor still look upon him with...guilt?

Loki couldn’t help but tense when he heard the guards enter the room. Instantly he shifted, trying to spy them out of the corner of his eye as he prepared to fight back. His magic may have been inhibited and he may not have any knives, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put up a fight. 

“Guards,” Odin said and Loki balled his hands into fists, ready to punch the first person to approach him. “Remove these shackles from my son.”

It took Loki’s adrenaline filled mind a moment longer than it should have to register the word ‘remove’, followed by ‘my son’. He stilled, breathing heavily as his hands shook and he found himself unsure of what was happening.

It seems the guards were just as confused as he was because one of them tentatively stepped forward and asked,

“My King, the traitor has-

“ _ Prince Loki _ is my  _ son _ ,” Odin declared, voice echoing through the room and making Loki tense on instinct, shoulders bouncing up around his ears as he was reminded of His fury and the pain that always came with angering him. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Thor making an aborted movement towards him, though he was stopped by Frigga’s hand on his arm, even though it seemed that the Queen was just barely restraining herself from rushing to Loki’s aid.

Loki’s cheeks flushed and he felt foolish as he quickly turned his gaze to the ground, embarrassed. How pathetic was he that he flinched when there was nothing to fear? When no hand was being raised to him? He swallowed and balled his trembling hands into fists, curling them into his stomach lest someone see and call him weak.

_ He _ hated when Loki was weak.

“I understand that, my King,” the guard went on, unaware of Loki’s internal battle to remain outwardly calm. “But he is still-”

“Remove these shackles from Prince Loki,” Odin said in a low tone, one that was almost more frightening than a shout. “Now.”

The guard did not hesitate and Loki stayed obediently still as the collar and cuffs were removed and taken away, leaving his throat and wrists to feel bare and exposed. 

Vulnerable.

He swallowed thickly, trying to muster up some courage, to find something horrid to say to Odin’s face, to spit at the man’s feet, to make the King regret returning him his magic.

Instead, all Loki could muster was a whisper of, “What will you do to me?” as he lifted his gaze to Odin’s all-seeing eye.

“For now, your mother will take you to your chambers to bathe and change,” Odin replied. “And then we will get you a meal.”

Loki looked over at Frigga as she took a step towards him and confusion and something akin to fear raced through him and he couldn’t control himself as he turned to Odin and shouted,

“No!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Thor stepped forward as Frigga flinched backwards, Odin remaining stubbornly unmoved.

“Loki-”

“I tried to take over Midgard,” Loki declared. “Have you forgotten!? I attempted to kill them, the people! I tried to destroy Jotunheim! Why are you not throwing me into the dungeons!?”

“Because it was not you,” Frigga said softly, expression remaining soft when Loki turned his wild eyes to her.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Did you not  _ see? _ Of course it was me, I was the one-”

“Lady Natasha held the scepter while we restrained you,” Thor cut in gently. “And she informed me, later, of what she saw.”

Loki wished none of them were watching him so closely because at least then he could have fooled himself into thinking they didn’t see the flinch he was unable to stop.

“Whatever she thinks she saw-”

“Brother, her eyes turned blue.”

“Perhaps that was their natural color.”

“Her natural eye color is green,” Thor explained softly. “As are yours and yet during the entire attack, your eyes were blue.”

“Brother-”

“You were under the control of another, Loki,” Odin insisted, drawing Loki’s attention back to the king. “But you were not the one who attempted to take control of Midgard.”

Loki shook his head. He felt helpless, suddenly, and he hated it. Odin was not supposed to side with him, was not supposed to tell him he was a  _ victim _ . He was supposed to rage and scream and either throw Loki into the dungeons or kill him.

He wasn’t supposed to...to  _ forgive _ him.

“But-”

“You’ve been through so much, Loki,” Odin murmured. “You need rest.”

“Brother,” Thor said softly. “Please. Let mother and I escort you to your chambers, get you into a hot bath and clean clothing. Something far more comfortable than armor.”

Loki didn’t want to. He wanted to rage and scream until he pushed Odin too far and found himself in the cold, dank cells far beneath the palace. But he couldn’t deny he was tired and sore and... _ scared _ .

His silence answered for him, because a moment later Thor appeared at his side, wrapping his arm around Loki’s shoulders and guiding him out of the throne room, Frigga following close behind.

………………………………..

He didn’t bathe long, couldn’t bring himself to. The warm water reminded him too much of a number of tortures he suffered at His hand and he found himself eager to get out and dry, dressing in the soft robes his mother had provided him before returning to his chambers where she and Thor waited.

His heart clenched as he looked around the all familiar room. A place he had thought he would never set foot in again.

“Loki?” Frigga prompted softly. “Are you alright?”

Loki sucked in a soft breath. No, he wasn’t alright. He hadn’t been alright for a long time and he didn’t think he ever would be again. But it would break his mother’s heart, he knew, if he responded truthfully and so he avoided the question by softly asking,

“Where’s Hela?” The instant the name was out of his lips, Thor and Frigga tensed and a feeling dread coiled in Loki’s gut. He narrowed his eyes as he regarded them. “Mother,” he said slowly. “Where is Hela?”

“Loki, you must understand-”

“No lies,” Loki ordered. “Tell me where Hela is.  _ Now _ .” when Frigga said nothing, Loki turned his gaze to Thor. “Brother-”

Thor was weak and Loki didn’t have to even finish the sentence before he was getting a reply.

“After you fell, father feared...he noted how similar you and Hela are. How you have always been.”

“Yes. He is aware of this. Why?” he felt his heart stop. “What did he do?”

“He banished her,” Frigga whispered when it was clear Thor could not go on. “To a realm that has no way in and no way out.”

“No.”

“Loki, you must understand-”

Loki shook his head and the Queen fell silent. She watched as her son lowered his head and his hands began to shake, even after he balled them into fists to stop the tremors. She felt her heart break as he let out a pitiful sob and the first tear fell from his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though it was unclear who exactly he was apologizing to. He brought his hands to his feet, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyelids as he continued to mumble, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Curling in on himself as tremors over took his body.

“Loki, it is not your fault-” Thor began, though he was cut off by Loki as the young Prince threw his arms down and bellowed,

“I am a monster and it’s because of  _ me _ that she is gone!”

His words echoed around the room and the following silence seemed to ring as he stood, chest heaving, in the wake of his rage. She knew Thor was not looking yet Frigga still shook her head when her eldest son took a step towards his little brother.

“Loki-” Thor whispered, reaching for the youngest.

“Leave me,” Loki whispered.

“Loki, please-”

“ _ Now!” _

……………………………………

They left him be for a few hours but Frigga insisted on taking a meal into him.

“Norns knows how long he has gone without a hot meal,” she had explained to Thor as she waited patiently for the cooks to finish the light spread, nothing too heavy that would upset his stomach if he truly had gone months without food.

“May I bring it to him?” Thor requested softly.

Frigga gave him a gentle look. “I think it’s best that you and your father give him his space, for tonight,” she explained softly.

“But-”

“At least wait until tomorrow, Thor,” Frigga requested. “He has just been informed that we do not blame him for the attack and on top of that, has just discovered the fate of his sister. He needs space to process.”

“But  _ you’re _ going to see him.”

“I’m going to deliver him his meal,” Frigga explained as she accepted the tray from the servant. “If he wishes me to stay, then I shall. But otherwise, I am giving him his space the same as you.”

Thor ducked his head, nodding. “I understand,” he said softly. “May I at least accompany you to his chambers?”

Frigga gave him a knowing look but nodded all the same and headed down the hall, Thor at her side.

“Do not tell Loki this,” she said softly as they made her way to the youngest’s room. “But I have hope that we can convince your father to return Hela to us.”

Thor perked up at that. “How?”

“He feared Hela would betray us the way Loki did,” Frigga explained. “But how is that possible when Loki has not?”

Thor pressed his lips together. “Will that be enough?” he asked softly. “Father knows Loki was not in control of his own actions on Midgard but we all know Loki was wholly sane...was wholly  _ himself _ in his attempt to destroy Jotunheim.”

“I do not know,” Frigga replied. “And I never claimed to. But I have  _ hope _ , Thor, and that is all that matters now.”

Thor couldn’t help but agree.

………………………………

Frigga knocked softly on the door - more for formality, really, than anything else - and entered before Loki could reply. He would not have, of that she was certain. She scanned his room quickly, heart breaking at the sight of him curled up on the floor, back against his bed.

“I’ve brought you dinner,” she told him softly, carrying the tray over to his desk, arranging everything just so because she may have told Thor she would leave after delivering the meal but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to stall.

When she had no other reason to stay, she sighed and moved towards the door. Just as she was about to close it behind her, she heard Loki’s soft voice ask,

“Did you know?”

She paused, hesitating, before slowly re-entering the room and closing the door behind herself.

“Did I know?” she repeated, helpless, unsure of what he was asking.

“About me,” he mumbled, never moving from his curled positon on the floor. “Of what I am.”

“You are my son.”

Loki shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “I’m not. Not the way it matters, not in blood.”

Oh. Now Frigga understood. “He told you then.”

Loki scoffed, a small smile appearing on his face as she shook his head. “No. he didn’t tell me. I saw.”

“How-” Oh. The Casket. The relic room. How numb Loki seemed as he watched Odin sleep.

“My son-”

“Please don’t,” Loki whispered, pulling his knees to his chest a bit tighter. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Tell me,” Frigga requested, striding swiftly across the floor and taking a seat beside her son, hesitating only a moment before pulling him into her side. “Tell me.”

So he told her. He told her everything, from his arm turning blue on Jotunheim to the discovery of his true heritage. When he finished the story, he sagged into her side and whispered,

“Did you know?”

“Yes,” Frigga replied softly. “Yes, I knew.”

“Did…” he hesitated. “Did Hela?”

“I think she did,” Frigga replied after a moment. “Odin says when you first changed your form, on Jotunheim, you choose her colors.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

……………………………………..

“Odin?”

“Yes?”

“Does Thor know?”

Odin frowned, bringing his gaze off from the middle distance to his wife who stood some steps down from his throne.

“Know?” he repeated.

“Of Loki,” Frigga replied. “Of his heritage?”

Odin thought it over for a moment, recalled the disastrous reveal his youngest had suffered through, before shaking his head.

“I never told.”

“I think, perhaps, it’s time. Don’t you?”

“Frigga-”

“Loki knows. What more is there to hide?”

……………………………..

Several Days Later

“Brother?” Thor asked as he tentatively pushed open the door. “May I come in?”

“Are you not already in?” Loki mumbled from where he was curled in bed on his side. Thor lowered his eyes but fully entered the room nonetheless, coming over to the bed and taking a careful seat on the edge.

“Mother has been trying to convince father to return Hela,” he said when the silence between them grew too powerful.

“He will not agree.”

“Then mother shall look for her and retrieve our sister herself.”

“She’ll never find her if the All-Father does not wish it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you do not know that mother will find her.”

“No, I do not,” Thor agreed. “But I have faith.”

“How?” Loki whispered, finally lifting his tired eyes to Thor. “How can you have faith?”

“Because I believe in our mother.” Loki shook his head but said nothing. Thor watched him for a few moments before tentatively reaching for his brother’s shoulder. When Loki didn’t react, he carefully settled his hand in place and softly asked, “Hela said you and father fought, the day he went into the Odinsleep.” Loki tensed beneath his hand but Thor forced himself to go on. “What about?”

“Nothing?”

Thor couldn’t help but smile. “You are a strategist above all else, brother,” he murmured. “You rarely fight over nothing.”

“First time for everything,” Loki snapped.

The younger’s eyes went wide when Thor barked out a laugh, shaking his head fondly as he removed his hand from Loki’s shoulder.

“I suppose there is,” he agreed, beaming down at Loki before his smile fell. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“That I could not save you,” Thor clarified. “That I could not save our sister.”

Loki lowered his eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly. “I don’t blame you.”

“You should.”

“Why?”

“You are my little brother,” Thor replied, returning his hand to Loki’s shoulder. “It is my job to protect you, just as it was Hela’s to protect me.”

Loki didn’t say anything and the room lapsed into silence. But it wasn’t the uncomfortable silence the two had long since learned to share. It was one of hope and peace, two things Loki could not remember feeling for so long.

After several moments (perhaps even half an hour, Thor isn’t sure), Loki gives a breathless laugh, a small smile appearing on his face as he curled in on himself a bit tighter and murmured,

“Hela always hated you.”

Thor frowned, staring at his brother in confusion. “What are you talking about?” he asked. Loki gave another laugh but this one was not like the other. This one was cold and dark and humorless, sending an icy chill down Thor’s spine.

“Hela always hated you,” he repeated.

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Loki asked, flicking his eyes towards Thor before returning them to where he’d been staring blankly at the wall across from his bed. “Tell me one time she chose you over me, brother. Tell me one time she did not dismiss you for me. Tell me one time-”

“ _ Enough _ ,” Thor snapped.

The younger chuckled again. “Well?” Loki asked.

Thor pressed his lips together. “We were playing in mother’s garden,” he pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. “You and Hela were…”

“Hela and I were playing as I showed her my magic,” Loki reminded the older. “You resigned yourself to playing in the dirt a few feet away.”

“By my own choice.”

The smile on Loki’s face was not one Thor ever wanted to see there again. “Are you so sure?”

Thor opened his mouth to reply but snapped it quickly close. The truth was, he wasn’t sure. All these years, yes, he’d thought for certain he always just wanted to play on his own while Hela contented herself with Loki. 

But the truth of the matter was…

“ _ Hela, will you play with me?” Thor asked from where he was seated on the floor nearby, a few toys strewn out in front of him though he hadn’t touched them in several minutes, instead watching over to where Hela was seated on the floor, watching little nine month old Loki clamber eagerly around the room. _

_ “Not now, Thor,” Hela replied dismissively as she reached over to pull Loki into her lap. _

_ “You  _ never _ play with me!” Thor whined. “You always play with Loki!” _

_ “Well, perhaps Loki is more interesting than you are,” Hela declared, smiling down at the little baby. _

_ “That’s stupid,” Thor muttered. “He can’t even talk yet.” _

_ “Well perhaps that’s why I prefer him.” _

“Oh, what’s the matter brother?” Loki gloated. “Suddenly realizing you were always the odd sibling out?”

“That’s not true.”

“What isn’t?” Loki demanded, shoving himself up as Thor got to his feet, giving himself space from Loki so he didn’t do something rash. “That you never fit in? Or that Hela has always preferred me to the  _ ever perfect _ Thor Odinson!?”

“Stop it.”

“So many  _ years _ , I chased after you,” Loki drawled. He was picking a fight, Thor knew.

And norns be damned, even after all these years Thor could feel his rage bubbling under his skin, itching to punch his little brother in the face. Loki always knew how to anger him. Always knew just what button to push to send Thor over the edge. “So many years  _ you _ shoved me aside for your silly little friends. Well now you finally know how it feels.” that dark smiled was back on his face as he shoved himself to his feet and stalked over to Thor, eyes darkening. “How does it feel, brother, to be unwanted by the ones you considered  _ family _ ?”

Thor roared, throwing his fist towards Loki’s face.

…………………………………

“So many  _ years _ , I chased after you,” Loki drawled. He was picking a fight - which probably wasn’t the  _ best _ course of action, given his semi-fragile mental state - but he was so angry. Still so  _ furious _ over everything. 

At Odin lying to him, at Hela being  _ gone _ , at all the  _ torture _ he’d suffered and how every damn person he had ever interacted with from the moment he was born was just in his life to  _ use _ him. “So many years  _ you _ shoved me aside for your silly little friends. Well now you finally know how it feels.” Thor’s hands curled into fists at his sides and Loki allowed himself a dark smile. It was also so  _ easy _ to infuriate his big brother. It was almost laughable, really. “How does it feel, brother, to be unwanted by the ones you considered  _ family _ ?”

There was no warning, no bellow of rage. No way to dodge or protect himself or even draw up a modicum of seidr before Thor’s fist was connecting with his face and Loki was flying halfway across the room. His head hit the ground first and he was pretty sure he lost several seconds of time because when he was blinking his eyes open and shoving himself up to his elbows, Thor had summoned Mjolnr and the crackling feel of electricity had begun to pulse in the air.

“Shut up,” the elder Prince snarled. “Stop talking.”

Loki gave a wild sort of laugh. One that sounded, even to him, a little bit  _ mad _ and seemed to pull Thor somewhat out of his rage, a look of concern flitting across the blonde’s face.

But Loki wasn’t done yet. Wasn’t done pushing him and - perhaps unconsciously - seeking out a punishment he felt he was long since justly due.

“And you know what’s even  _ better _ ?” he hissed as he pulled himself to his feet, wiping a hand across his nose and not feeling surprise when it came away red. “I am not even Asgardian.”

Thor roared but this time Loki was ready for the attack and as his brother blundered towards him, he threw up an illusion of himself, stepping out of the way just as Thor barrelled through the fake and careened into the balcony doors, shattering them outwards.

“Idiot,” Loki drawled, hands clasped behind his back as he calmly turned to watch Thor pick himself up, the skies of Asgard darkening behind him. No doubt the sudden storm and shattering of the glass would alert both guard and parent to a fight happening within the room, but Loki was too far gone in his madness (and Thor, his anger) to care. “How pathetic. So blinded by your anger, you can’t even see the truth for an illusion.”

When Thor let out another bellowing roar and charged at him, something in Loki froze and snapped. Distantly he heard a door open, heard a gasp and someone call his name yet all he could focus on was Mjolnr flying towards his chest.

He didn’t move. Didn’t teleport away or duck or bring up a weapon to deflect. He merely let the hammer slam into his chest and throw him back. When his head cracked against against the wall and he slumped to the floor, he had a moment to hope he died from this before darkness claimed him.

………………………………..

Frigga had been on her way to check on Loki when Odin had appeared. “You are checking on him?” he asked gently.

“Yes.”

“May I...join you?” he lowered his head. “I owe him an apology.”

“I think you owe him several,” Frigga replied as she laced her arm in Odin’s and the two made their way to their youngest son’s room. Odin hummed his reply but whatever he was about to say was cut off when they approached the doors to Loki’s room and heard a loud roar of rage from within.

“Thor,” Odin whispered before he and Frigga rushed inside, calling Thor and Loki’s name just as Mjolnr slammed into Loki’s chest, throwing him back. Frigga’s hands flew to her mouth at the sound of her youngest’s head slamming against the wall before he slumped to the floor and went still.

Without caring for Thor, Frigga rushed to Loki’s side as Odin moved to Thor’s. “Loki?” Frigga whispered, cupping Loki’s face in her hands, noting the blood trickling from his nose, indicating an earlier hit they’d missed. “Loki, can you hear me?”

“I-I’m sorry.” Frigga turned and found Thor and Odin standing behind her, Thor’s eyes wide in terror. “I-I didn’t mean...he was...I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s alright,” Frigga whispered as she stepped back, allowing Odin to scoop Loki’s limp form into his arms. “It was an accident.”

“The things he was saying…” Thor went on, staring after Odin as the King rushed his youngest to the healing chambers.

“He was trying to make you angry,” Frigga soothed. “It is something he has always been good it.”

“He’s unwell, I should have stayed calm.”

“Thor,” Frigga murmured. “What happened?”

Thor shifted. “He claimed Hela had never loved me,” he replied quietly. “That she’d hated me.”

“Thor-”

“Is it not true?” Thor asked softly. “In all our childhood, Hela had always cared more for Loki than I.”

“They were very similar.”

“Perhaps,” Thor agreed. They were quiet for some time before he murmured, “Mother, is Loki truly my brother?”

Frigga’s eyes went wide. “Thor, of course he’s-”

“I meant by blood,” Thor clarified. When Frigga said nothing to that, Thor added, “Loki claimed he was not Asgardian. Is this true?”

Frigga sighed, clasping her hands together in front of herself. “Yes,” she replied softly. “He is not Asgardian.”

“Then what is he?”

…………………………

“He will be fine,” Eir told Odin as she fluttered around Loki’s bedside, magic flowing around him to quickly heal the injuries dealt by Thor. “You needn’t hover.”

Odin pressed his lips together. “Thor struck him.”

“And Loki has come to me with far worse injuries through his childhood, most of which you don’t even know of.”

Odin’s single eye went wide. “Loki would not-”

“Get injured?” Eir questioned, a small smile on her face. “My King, your son’s primary weapon is knives which he has been using from a young age. Did you expect the Prince to take to them without injury?”

“Hela’s primary weapon was knives and swords,” Odin said.

“Your point?”

“She did not gain quite so many injuries.”

“Perhaps,” Eir agreed. “Or perhaps she acquired just as many and merely kept them from you.”

Odin sighed. “Loki is not...self-destructive. Not the way Hela was.”

“Are you so sure?”

No, he wasn’t.


	5. His Brother's Truth

**2012 - Asgard**

“How did I not see?” Thor asked quietly, he and Frigga seated in the Queen’s garden. “How did I go through our entire childhood and never know?”

“Your father did not want you to,” Frigga soothed. “He wanted Loki to feel that he belonged-”

“And how did that work!?” Thor demanded loudly. “Look at what has happened to my brother, mother! Look at how father’s plan worked!”

“I agree that your father’s plan was ill-advised,” Frigga soothed. “But we never intended for this to happen.”

“I would hope not.”

Frigga sighed. “I wanted to tell you all from the very beginning,” she said softly. “But your father feared it would drive Loki away from the start.” she bowed her head. “I see now that I should have told you anyway.”

Thor’s shoulders slumped and he moved over to sit next to his mother. “I should not have gotten so angry with him. I should not have struck him.”

“It is not your fault.”

“But it is,” Thor insisted. “I am to be king one day, but how can I rule when I cannot even stay calm in the face of my brother’s goading?”

“You will grow,” Frigga soothed. “It is not your fault-”

“Did Hela know?”

Frigga frowned. “What?”

“Did she know that Loki was of Jotunheim?” Thor clarified. “That he is Laufey’s son?”

“No. We never told her either.”

“Yet she always knew that Loki was different,” Thor murmured. 

Frigga pressed her lips together. “She suspected from the beginning, I think, that Loki was not my own.”

“And yet you continued to lie.”

“If she had wanted the truth, she would have confronted us.”

“Is Hela truly yours?”

“What?”

“She and Loki looked alike and Loki was not of Asgard,” Thor explained. “Was Hela?”

“Yes, Hela was. Your father believes, when Loki changed his form that day on Jotunheim, he sensed Hela’s appearance and chose it over yours.”

Thor closed his eyes. “How did we not see?”

Frigga had no reply to that.

……………………………….

Loki awoke several hours after losing consciousness and Eir released him back to his room three days later. It seemed the strike on the head had done something for him because when Thor went to apologize, Loki was seated on the balcony reading as opposed to lying in bed and appearing mere moments from death.

“Brother,” Thor murmured. “You look...better.”

Indeed, Loki was no longer dressed in a loose shirt and pants but instead dressed in his usual black and green attire, hair brushed and tucked behind his ears and his skin did not seem quite so sallow.

“And you look about the same,” Loki replied, closing his book on his thumb to save his page as he turned to give Thor his full attention as the elder prince took a seat across from him.

“I want to apologize-” Thor began, though he was cut off when Loki lifted his hand.

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Loki soothed. “I was the one who goaded you into a fight and then refused to fight back. You had nothing to do with it.”

“Brother, you were unconscious for hours and in the healing wing for days.”

“And I am fine now,” Loki declared, crossing his left leg over his right and shifting in his seat to place his arm on the armrest of the chair, leaning his weight on his right elbow and leaning away from Thor. “Why are you so worried?”

“I could have killed you.”

“Did you?”

Thor frowned. “Well...no…”

“Then why are you so concerned?”

“Because…”

“Because you know the truth,” Loki guessed. “You know what I am and you think I am more fragile now that you know I am not Asgardian.”

Thor shook his head, eyes wide as he stood and moved to kneel next to Loki’s side, staring up at his brother. At this angle, he was able to see just how tired Loki looked. Whether from lack of sleep or something else, Thor didn’t know.

“Brother, that thought never even crossed my mind.”

“But you do know? My parentage? My true…” whatever Loki was going to say stayed silent as his grip tightened on his book and he looked away.

“That changes nothing.”

Loki scoffed, shaking his head and still refusing to look at Thor. “It changes everything.”

“How?” Thor asked. Loki opened his mouth to reply but Thor wasn’t done yet and he barreled on. “What does it change other than your true appearance which remains hidden under your magic?” Loki flinched at the reminder but Thor reached up and placed a gentle hand on his brother’s arm. “Your true parentage changes nothing, brother.”

“I am a monster.”

“Your ancestry is, perhaps,” Thor agreed. “But you are not.”

“Have you truly missed everything I’ve done?”

“You were not in control on Midgard,” Thor soothed.

“I attempted to slaughter Jotunheim. I  _ killed _ Laufey.” though he couldn’t see his brother’s face clearly from this angle, there was no denying the choked sound in Loki’s voice with that last sentence. “Was I not in control then?”

“Father raised you wrong, brother,” Thor soothed, leaning up on his knees to gently grip the juncture of Loki’s neck and head. “His purpose was for you to never feel outcast or different but he did little to prevent that. He favored me, yes, and that is what drove you to the edge.”

“Thor-”

“Is it not?” Thor asked, tightening his grip just slightly on Loki’s forearm. “Did you not do what you did in an effort to gain father’s approval?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I was there when you fell from the bifrost, Loki.”

“When you  _ threw _ me from the bifrost.”

Thor ignored that. “You were telling father you could have done it for him. You only did it for him, all you wanted was his approval.”

“Shut up.”

Loki turned to look at his brother, surprise in his eyes, when Thor consented by removing his hand from Loki’s arm and standing.

“Forgive me, brother, for pushing,” Thor murmured. “But I want you to know that I am sorry. And that your true parentage changes nothing between us. You are still my brother, Laufey’s son or not.”

He left before Loki could object.

…………………………………

It was hours later, Thor in the sparring fields with Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral, engaged in combat with Sif, when the young woman remarked,

“Your brother is watching us.”

Assuming it was a trick - his friends had often used it in their childhood - he ignored her until he had her pinned to the ground, Mjolnr at her throat.

“You put up a remarkable fight,” he said as he helped her to her feet. “Even with your attempt at distraction and deceit.”

“There was no deceit, Thor,” she told him. “Loki is watching.”

Thor frowned and turned to indeed find Loki seated on the benches outside the sparring fields, right leg crossed over the other and hands politely folded in his lap as he watched them. When he realized Thor and Sif had noticed him, he stood and moved to the edge of the field, Thor approaching to meet him there.

“Brother,” Loki greeted.

Thor’s heart swelled at the word. “Loki,” he replied fondly. “Is something wrong, did you need something?”

“No, I…” Loki hesitated briefly, clearing his throat. “Was hoping to speak with you. In private. I see now that you are busy, however, so I will simply-”

“No!” Thor said, reaching out to grab Loki’s arm with just a slight hint of panic in his voice. “No, please, it’s...I am not busy. I was merely passing time. What do you need, brother?”

“It…” Loki looked over towards where Sif and the warriors were standing, watching, and Thor thought his brother lost a little color in his cheeks before green eyes flicked back to his and Loki finished, “Can wait.”

“Brother…”

“It wasn’t important anyway, we can talk later.”

“No, Loki, please,” Thor begged, not releasing Loki’s arm even though the younger did try to tug away once or twice. “What is it?”

“It...I...I want to talk in private.”

“Of course, we can-”

“It’s not  _ private _ here, Thor,” Loki hissed, eyes taking on a bit of panic (and perhaps a bit of lingering madness) as they flicked over Thor’s friends before returning to his brother’s face. He shook his head, stepping back and slipping his arm through Thor’s lax hold. “It’s not important, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Loki-”

“ _ Later _ , Thor.”

And then he was gone. Thor sighed, letting his arm drop as he watched his brother walk away as his friends approached and Fandral replied,

“Who needs him, right? All he ever does is-”

“Have care how you speak,” Thor warned in a voice that lacked conviction. “You may dislike him but Loki is still a prince of Asgard. He has been through much that you will never understand.”

“Hey, relax,” Hogun said, moving to place a hand on Fandral’s shoulder, Volstagg doing the same on the other side while Sif stared off at Loki’s retreating figure. “He didn’t mean anything by it-”

“Stop. Talking.”

His friends snapped their mouths shut, regarding Thor with a confused expression before Sif finally stepped forward.

“If I recall correctly, Thor-”

“Excuse me,” Thor said firmly, cutting her off. “I need to speak with Loki.”

And then we was gone across the fields, rushing after the retreating form of his little brother.

…………………………………………

Thor swallowed thickly, ensuring everything was in order before reaching out and knocking firmly upon Loki’s chamber doors. There was a moment of silence where Thor wondered if his brother was even inside before he heard a distant call of,

“Come in.”

Gathering his courage, Thor pushed the door open and scanned the room before finding Loki seated in one of the armchairs near the hearth, the balcony doors open and blowing in a gentle breeze that shifts his brother’s dark locks on his shoulders.

He must have hesitated too long because Loki looked up after a moment, frowning when he found Thor standing in the doorway.

“Thor,” he greeted. “Did you need something?”

Thor shook his head, turning to close the door. “No,” he replied. “But you did.”

Loki averted his gaze, turning back to his book. “It was nothing, Thor,” he dismissed, though Thor had long since learned to read through his brother’s lies. “Nothing important, at least.”

“It does not matter whether it was important or not,” Thor murmured as he approached his brother. “It was something you wanted to discuss.”

He noted the way Loki’s grip on his book tightened before the younger Prince replied,

“Not anymore.”

“Loki, please don’t do this,” Thor pleaded. “Don’t shut me out, don’t shut me away. You are the only sibling I have left, I don’t want to lose you again. Whatever it was, Loki, I will hear it out.”

“It was nothing to hear.” Loki curled in on himself, tone turning impossibly softer as he murmured, “Only to see.”

Understanding dawned instantly. “You wished you show me your true form.”

Loki shifted, avoiding Thor’s gaze. “More so you would not pester me, in the future, to see it.”

“I would never pester-”

“Think before you speak, Thor,” Loki murmured.

Thor snapped his mouth shut, watching Loki open his book once more before calmly taking a seat in the other armrest, waiting until Loki looked up to speak.

“I have been a poor brother. I always have. Had I not taken you to Jotunheim, none of this would have happened.”

“No, it would have,” Loki disagreed softly, slowly setting his book down. “I just would never have known the truth.”

“Brother, you don’t know-”

“I was the one who allowed the frost giant’s entrance to Asgard during your coronation,” Loki cut in, avoiding Thor’s gaze. “I wanted to ruin it. Ruin your special day. I was...upset. Jealous. But I had Hela, I should not have wished for more.”

Thor blinked, letting his anger simmer out before he spoke in order to prevent another fight as the one they’d just had several days previous.

“You believe that just because you had the attention of one sibling meant you should not have wanted more?” he asked softly. “Brother, you…” he gave a soft laugh. “When father brought you home, do you know who was delighted to have a younger brother?” Loki didn’t reply but he lifted his eyes as a silent indication for Thor to go on. “I was. I was overjoyed to finally have a playmate. To finally have my own little brother to take care of and play with. It was Hela who did not want you.”

Loki frowned. “What? What do you...what are you talking about?”

“Hela has hated me since I was born, of that we are both aware,” Thor remarked. “But she was none impressed when you arrived either. She wanted nothing to do with you, would not even look.”

“What...changed?”

“I believe she saw what you looked like,” Thor replied. “Saw how similar you were to her and finally realized…” he sighed. “I will not pretend to understand the inner working of our sister’s mind. But the point was, brother, that she loved you as I once had.”

“What changed?” Loki repeated, only in reference to Thor, this time.

Thor sighed. “She took to you and you to her,” he replied. “I felt...outcast. The two of you were more similar to one another than I had any hope to be.” he chuckled. “Had I not looked like mother and father, I daresay I would have assumed  _ I  _ was the adopted one.”

That drew a small smile to Loki’s lips. Silence fell between them again but this time, it was a far more comfortable one until Loki murmured,

“If Hela does return, I doubt she will take kindly to seeing me again.”

Thor blinked, frowning. “Brother, what are you talking about?” he asked. “Hela was the most devastated of us all, when you fell.”

“Yes, well…” Loki shifted. “I...spoke with mother earlier. Apparently it is my fault Hela was cast away.”

“Mother would never say that.”

Loki smiled softly, but the expression was sad this time. “She didn’t have to.”


	6. I Am A Monster And So, It Seems, Is Hela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki drags Thor to the woods, intent to bring their sister back even without their father's permission
> 
> But is their sister too far gone in their madness to be safely returned to the golden halls of Asgard?

While things between Thor and Loki improved significantly after that quiet heart to heart, things between the youngest Prince and King of the realm never really did get better. If anything, yelling started barely eight months in to Loki’s return.

Loki was furious that his father had banished his sister for the mere crime that she looked like him and Odin was enraged that Loki had had the audacity to allow himself to be so weak that a little bit of torture was enough for another to gain control of his mind. And in between each of these shouting matches, Frigga did what she could to beg Odin to return Hela to them.

Each day, she tried and each day, he refused.

“Your father is stubborn,” she told Loki one night that they were seated in the young Prince’s room, the fire burning in the hearth as the only light in the room, Loki with a book and Frigga sewing a pair of pants Thor had mistakenly ripped attempting some ridiculous stunt to impress his friends. “He doesn’t understand that-”

“He’s made his choice of what I am, mother,” Loki said calmly. “I am a monster-”

“ _ Loki _ !”

“And so Hela must be as well.”

“Do not call yourself a monster,” Frigga said firmly. “You are not. You are not your heritage.”

“But that matters not to father, does it?” Loki drawled. “Appearance is all that matters to him. I appear as a frost giant and so I must be a monster. Hela appears as I and so she must be mad too.”

Frigga sighed. “As king, your father must think of the good of Asgard-”

“Even if that means locking his own children in inescapable prisons?”

Frigga’s expression softened. “He did not lock  _ you _ away.”

“No. Merely Hela  _ because _ of me.”

The conversation ended there.

…………………………….

“Brother, you are going to join me,” Loki declared, storming into Thor’s room and causing the older Prince to jump at the unexpected intrusion.

“Loki,” Thor greeted cautiously, taking in the sight of his brother in full armor and helmet. “What am I joining you in?”

Looking every bit the Prince and brother Thor had watched grow and fall, Loki lifted his chin high and firmly declared,

“We are going to find and retrieve our sister.”

Thor’s eyes widened comically and he was on his feet and summoning mjolnir near faster than Loki could blink.

“Truly!?” The elder prince asked. “You know where she is!?”

Loki leveled his brother with a blank yet unimpressed look. “No,” he drawled.

Thor frowned. “But you said-”

“I said we would find her, Thor. That implies that we shall look for her, not that I know where she is.”

“I see,” Thor murmured. He cleared his throat and straightened up, drawing together his composure as he asked, “And how shall we find her?”

Loki smiled. “Mother and Heimdall have offered to help, however, I don’t believe we shall need them.”

“Loki, you alone cannot-”

“I do not mean to make it seem as though I boast my power, brother,” Loki said, lifting a hand to silence the other. “It is...complicated. Do you remember the forests we used to play in? As children?”

“Of course,” Thor replied. “You, Hela, and I went there to play in our youth.” He scowled. “You once left me there until father sent guards to retrieve me well into the night.”

“At Hela’s insistence,” Loki corrected flippantly, though the smile on his face said he had had at least  _ some _ part in it. “And it was not well into the night, you dramatic fool. It was hardly past supper. Now go don your armor. You may need it.”

“How exactly did you even manage to convince mother and father I was not in need of rescue?” Thor asked as he moved off to do as Loki had said.

“Simple, really,” Loki replied. “Hela told them you had fallen for some faceless Aesir broad and would likely not be home until morning.”

“And they believed you.”

“Mother was skeptical, I’m sure,” Loki replied. “Father was…”

Thor perked up, peeking out of his bathing chambers at his brothers odd silence, noting how long was staring blankly out the closed balcony doors, hands clasped behind his back.

“Loki?” Thor prompted softly.

Loki sucked in a quiet breath, slowly rolling his shoulders - something he had begun to do in order to conceal a shiver of terror, Thor had learned - before turning back to Thor and remarking,

“I came to mother in tears, after Hela had mused that you ought to be dead by then.”

Thor stilled. “She wanted me dead?”

“Whether she wanted you dead or was merely saying as such to upset me, I do not know,” Loki replied. He huffed, all evidence of sorrow or fear gone from his expression in a second as he snapped, “Are you ready yet?”

Recognizing that their moment of openness with one another was over, Thor shook his head.

“Another moment and we shall go.”

Loki sighed and once his brother turned back to the window, Thor smiled.

Far away, in a realm all her own, Hela listened through the connection, a twisted grin appearing on her face as a dagger formed in her hand.

Loki was coming and coming for her. At long last, she would have her revenge on the bastard who had put her there. At long last, her little silvertongue would be safe in her arms once more.

If Asgard had to fall in order to ensure her little brother’s protection, then so be it.

……………………………………………….

Their trek down the halls of the palace was silent for sometime and just as Thor was considering breaking it, Loki spoke.

“What was she like?”

Thor blinked, frowning before looking over at his brother who was still looking ahead, not paying Thor even a glance.

“Who?”

“The woman,” Loki clarified. “From Midgard, that you loved. What was her name?”

“Jane.”

“Jane,” Loki repeated. “What was she like?”

“She was…” Thor thought for a few moments. “Beautiful. Kind. Smart, in a way I had never seen except for…”

“Except for?”

“In you.”

Loki hummed. “I’m sorry.”

Thor stopped in his tracks, Loki doing the same and looking up at the older prince with that same blank expression that he seemed to have begun wearing more often than not since his return.

“Sorry?” Thor asked. Demanded, really. “What in the  _ norns _ -”

“Had I not been so adamant at destroying Jotunheim to prove myself to father, you would have had no need to destroy the bridge and your only way back to her.”

“Brother that was-”

“Entirely my fault and I shall take full blame,” Loki murmured.

“Loki-”

“We should continue,” Loki declared, turning and striding away before Thor could say another word. “I do not wish to seek out Hela in the darkness. We know not what nightmares may lurk in whatever Helheim forsaken realm father has sent her to.”

Though Thor still desperately wanted to press the previous topic, he had long since learned that there were certain topics Loki wished to avoid. As his mother had once remarked, if Loki wishes to speak on something, he will. Otherwise, he shall remain silent.

Thor could not help but feel as though his brother’s preference for silence was his fault.

………………………………….

“So why do you need to find her here?” Thor asked once he was seated against the base of a tree in the dark, dead center of the forest he, Loki, and Hela used to play in.

“Hela spent much of her time here, even before we were born,” Loki replied where he was stood nearby, flipping through a spell book in search of who knew what. “It will make it easier to focus on her.”

“I see.”

Loki’s lip ticked up in a smile as he asked over his shoulder, “You didn’t understand what I said, did you?”

“Not entirely, no,” Thor confessed. “But I trust your skill, brother. Bring our sister home.”

Loki nodded once, firmly, snapping his spellbook shut and tossing it to the side. He flexed his fingers, taking a deep breath as he tried to quell an odd sense of unease that had begun growing the moment he’d decided he would bring Hela back.

It seemed he hesitated too long, because a moment later there was a heavy hand on his shoulder and Thor murmuring,

“Brother? Are you alright?”

Sucking in a soft breath, Loki nodded and squared his shoulders. “Are you ready to see how sister?”

Thor stepped back and Loki did not need to turn around to see his brother’s grin as the elder god replied,

“Bring her home, Loki.”

………………………….

Loki was calling.

Her little Silvertongue was calling to her, reaching for that seidr connection they shared, trying to draw her, pull her in.

Pull her home.

Hela stood slowly, turning towards the direction the power came from, feeling Loki’s magic pulse within her chest as she stepped forward. Towards Asgard. Towards home.

But something stopped her. Something dark and angry and vile crept up in her throat and she sneered. How dare he. How  _ dare _ he be the cause of  _ her _ banishment and then think she would ever want anything to do with him! How  _ dare _ he have the audacity to cast her out and send her away, only to come crawling back and begging for her return.

Hela’s hands curled into fists, long nails biting into the soft flesh of her palms as she seethed. Loki wanted her back, wanted to see her so badly.

She would show him. She would  _ make _ him see what had become of her, what he had done to her. 

Grinning, Hela took hold of Loki’s magic and  _ twisted _ , flooding his connection with her own soiled power, closing her eyes and imagining the scream of agony he would release when her tainted magic would reach his, flooding his veins and infecting it, infecting him.

_ Killing  _ him, hopefully, if Hela was strong enough. Her brother was the cause of her fall, a monster who had sought to slaughter an entire race, who had welcomed Laufey into their halls and nearly gotten their mother  _ killed _ and he dare to think he was innocent to Hela’s banishment?

He dare to think he had any more right to return to the golden halls of Asgard with little more than a slap on the wrist while Hela, the  _ true _ victim, was left to suffer and rot in a prison all alone where none but her pathetic little  _ freak _ of a brother could reach her?

No, Hela thought as fury filled her veins and made her see red as she tightened her grip even further onto Loki’s weakening magic. Loki would die and he would die at Hela’s hand.

Hela hoped, as Loki’s magic fell from her hold and her world went silent again, that Loki would not make it to Valhalla. He was no hero, he did not deserve such luxuries.

She grinned, slowly turning away as she cupped the slightest bit of Loki’s magic she had managed to rip form him before the connection closed. With this, she would be able to regain her strength and return to Asgard.

Loki was the first. Thor would be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be awhile till the next update, sadly. I don't have anymore chapters currently written after this


	7. Loki, What Have You Done?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what now? Do we just give up on Hela?”
> 
> “Her banishment has changed her, Thor. Corrupted her. She attacked me despite knowing full well who I was.”
> 
> “You think she intended to-”
> 
> “I think, if Hela escapes or is freed, that she will kill anyone and anything in her path in order to get to our father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, I am so so sorry it's taken me so long to post thing. Ugh...
> 
> Anyway, here you go

Loki screamed.

Loki doubled over, screaming, and clutching his head, collapsing to his knees as he gagged, fell, and went silent.

“Loki!?” Thor shouted, rushing to his brother’s side and rolling the limp prince to the side, looking frantically around the deathly silent wood as he dared to whisper, “Hela?”

Thor reaches for Loki again but his brother, gasping through the pain, bats him off with an irritated growl of,

“ _ Don’t _ .”

“Loki, what happened?” Thor asked, scooting back just a bit as Loki pushed himself to his hands and knees, eyes pinched closed and hands glowing as seidr raced through them. That had Thor frowning because...because that wasn’t good, right?

The seidr should be  _ outside _ Loki’s hands in green and gold sparkles, intertwining his fingers.

His hands absolutely should not be glowing and his fingers should not be turning  _ black _ from the tip downwards.

“Loki, what is happening?” Thor demanded, worry for his brother making his tone seem harder, angrier, then he intended.

“Shut up.”

“ _ Loki _ , something is  _ wrong _ !”

“ _ Enough _ , Thor!”

“Loki, this is beyond what even you can handle, I insist we go back to the palace-”

“I am trying to  _ concentrate _ ,” Loki snarled, green eyes hard but Thor can see a bit of his natural frost giant red creeping in, his skin even taking on a bit of his true blue. “If you do not stop talking right this instant, I shall die and it will be all your fault!”

Thor blinks at his brother’s harsh phrasing, looks again to Loki’s black hands, and moves further from his brother without another word. Loki huffs, hanging his head, before squaring his shoulders and closing his eyes.

The woods are deathly silent for several long moments and Thro has a moment, just one, where he fears his brother has just died right in front of him while he did nothing more than stand by and idly watch.

But then Loki releases a soft, relaxed breath. The blue fades from his skin and his hands return to the Aesir shade they had previously possessed before the blackness began to take hold. Still, Thor does not dare to speak in case he breaks whatever fragile hold Loki may have over his power, over the darkness, and sends his brother falling into Valhalla sooner than either of them want.

Thor frowns. Will Loki even go to Valhalla? They had been raised on such dark tales of the Frost Giants and none ever included the beasts - no, his brother’s  _ kin _ \- going to Valhalla.

But Loki is not a Frost Giant in anything but blood, not  _ truly _ . So surely that will earn him an exception with the Norns.

Won’t it?

“If you keep thinking any harder, your brain is going to explode,” Loki drawled from where he was now laying on his stomach with his arms crossed over one another, hands hidden from sight and forehead resting on his arms. “And  _ then _ who will be the dead one?”

“Are you well now?” Thor asked, tentatively but glad Loki at least wasn’t screaming anymore.

That had been...that had been…

At least Loki wasn’t screaming anymore.

Loki hummed before shoving himself up. His hands were shaking but otherwise normal and Thor released a quiet breath as they gathered their things.

“What happened?” he asked.

Loki ignored him. “We should return,” he remarked calmly as he flipped through the pages of a spell book he had brought with him. “Before father notices that we attempted to contact Hela.”

“Attempted?” Thor wondered as they made the trek back to the palace. “Did you not succeed?”

Loki hummed. “I succeeded in contact with  _ something _ ,” he replied, lifting his gaze to level Thor with a hard expression as he tonelessly remarked, “I do not think it was Hela. At least…” he dropped his gaze back to the book. “Not anymore.”

Thor did not like what those words implied.

……………………….

“Loki,” Odin said, voice no nonsense once the two Princes had been escorted to the throne room the moment they had returned to the palace. “What have you done?”

Loki was a pillar of calm disinterest as he blandly looked up at their father with little to no expression on his face and replied,

“I know not of what you speak,  _ father _ .” The title was said with such malice and venom yet so well hidden beneath Loki’s typical silver tongued magic that only Odin and Thor flinched at the true meaning. The true  _ insult _ in the word’s use.

“Loki…” Thor warned softly.

“You attempted contact with Hela.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Loki straightened. “Hela did not deserve what was done to her.”

“Hela is a monster.”

“Oh?” Loki turned to Thor. “I hadn’t realized she’d committed treason, before her banishment.”

Thor winced. “Brother…”

“What would you call what I did then, father?” Loki asked, turning back to Odin. “Trying to destroy an entire realm, attempting to take over Asgard.” He raised an eyebrow. “Normal teenage rebellion, perhaps?”

“Loki,  _ enough _ .”

“You sent Hela away simply because of my acting out and the fact that we look so similar,” Loki declared. “Hela is only a monster because _ you _ made her that way.”

“Your sister has been an outcast and a  _ beast _ from the moment she was born,” Odin declared firmly. “ _ I _ committed treason, I invited Frost Giants into Asgard to ruin Thor’s coronation and yet when I returned from attempting to take over Midgard-”

“You were not in control-”

“I was welcomed back with open arms.”

“The situation between you and Hela is  _ different _ -”

“So if you’d thought I was a threat to Asgard, you would have locked me away without a moment of thought?”

“Stop twisting my words-”

But Loki wasn’t listening anymore, turning and storming out of the throne room, leaving Thor and Odin staring after him. As soon as the doors slammed closed behind him, Thor tentatively turned to their father and murmured,

“I’ll go after him. Make sure he doesn’t attempt to free her again.”

“Hela is dangerous in ways your brother has never been,” Odin told him. “Even far before your birth, Hela has always been different. When she grew close to Loki, I had hoped they would bond enough to even out one another’s temperaments. But after Loki’s attack on Jotunheim and following fall, I knew this would only result in Hela’s spiral. I acted before she could in order to preserve the nine realms.”

Thor shifted. “I understand, father,” he murmured. “I’ll keep watch over Loki.”

“Thank you, my son.”

………………………………..

“Loki, are you-”

“I’m not attempting to free or contact Hela if that’s what you’re about to ask,” Loki drawled when Thor entered the younger prince’s chamber’s and found him seated at his desk, pouring over a scroll Thor could never hope to decipher. “I am not so stupid as to make that mistkae again.”

Thor winced. “You heard father’s words.”

“I did not, but by your reaction I suppose I can easily guess,” Loki replied, dragging his green eyes up to give Thor an unimpressed look before turning back to the text again. “Besides, after what happened in the forest…”

_ Hands glowing as seidr raced through them. That had Thor frowning because...because that wasn’t good, right? _

_ The seidr should be outside Loki’s hands in green and gold sparkles, intertwining his fingers. _

_ His hands absolutely should not be glowing and his fingers should not be turning black from the tip downwards. _

“What...did happen?” Thor asked tentatively, moving away from the door to stand at his brother’s side. Loki sighed, the kind of sigh he used to give when they were far younger and innocent and Thor would ask a question that Loki felt held a very obvious answer.

Perhaps it did.

“Hela used her own...dark seidr to corrupt mine,” Loki replied simply.

“That’s...bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes Thor, that’s bad,” Loki drawled. “If not dealt with and purged, tainted or corrupted seidr can kill the mage.”

Thor’s eyes went wide and he made an aborted gesture forward, only to pause as he knew his brother would be less than pleased with having his hands grabbed and examined.

“But you are...okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Thor didn’t really believe that, but he knew better than to press any further. “So...what now?” he asked. “Do we just...give up on Hela?”

“Her banishment has changed her, Thor,” Loki replied, shoulders slumping as something akin to exhaustion took over. “Corrupted her. She attacked me despite knowing full well who I was.”

“You think she intended to-”

“I think, if Hela escapes or is freed,” Loki said slowly. “That she will kill anyone and anything in her path in order to get to our father.”

Thor did not know what to say to that. “I-”

“Whatever I contacted...is no longer our sister.”

Thor nodded. “Then we leave her,” he decided. “She’s become a lost cause at this point, there is nothing more we can do to help her.”

Loki said nothing so Thor nodded to himself and, satisfied that his brother was, for once, being honest, let himself out of the younger Prince’s room.

It was only when he left that he recalled just how close Hela and Loki had always been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect regular updates for this, that's definitely not gonna happen. I'm terrible at keeping deadlines.


	8. I Will Protect You To My Dying Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's The Great Feast of Asgard so soon after their failure to rescue their sister that Thor, disillusioned to the greatness of his father, finds himself in the corner of the library with the only person who mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My excuses for not uploading for so long:
> 
> 1) I didn't have the chapter written after the last publication  
> 2) I forgot about the story  
> 3) I got bored with the story  
> 4) Depression : )

The Great Feasts of Asgard had always been one of Thor’s favorite royal events, filled with music and drinking, friends and laughter. One of the only times a year that the entire realm gathered in the palace to spend the night drunk and in celebration for little other reason than to praise the protection of their great and wise King Odin Borson.

But after everything that had happened, since his brother’s fall and his sister’s banishment, Thor did not feel like celebrating and Odin no longer seemed the ‘great and wise King’ Thor had once revered him to be.

That was why he found himself in the library, hidden in some back corner alongside Loki who had merely regarded him with blank eyes when Thor had approached before returning back it his book, a silent confirmation that Thor could sit with him.

“I’m sorry.” Thor murmured. They’d been there in quiet for a good two hours, Loki reading and Thor simply enjoying the silence for the first time in his life when the elder prince felt it was finally time to speak.

“For what?” Loki drawled, voice empty as he continued to focus on the book in hand, though the fact that he had responded so soon after Thor spoke was promising in terms of how closely he was listening.

“I should have protected you, but instead I let you fall into the darkness,” Thor murmured. “I let that  _ beast _ take control of your mind-” Loki flinched. “And treated you as little more than my worst enemy when we met again upon Midgard.”

“What else were you to do?”

“I should have rejoiced,” Thor replied. “Celebrated that my brother had returned to me at last.” he lowered his eyes shamefully. “I should have noticed the difference in the color of your eyes. It should not have taken Lady Natasha holding your scepter for me to learn of the control,” Thor went on. “I should have seen it the moment Barton was turned against us and yet the moment you appeared, I assumed you were fully in control.”

“And at last, you finally understand the point of the scepter.”

Thor decided to ignore that barb. “I did not protect you, brother, and then I let father send Hela away when she had done little more than appear like you.”

“And even that was my-”

“Please,” Thor whispered. “Stop.”

There must have been something genuine or sincere in his tone because Loki stilled, finally lifting his head to look over at Thor. He froze, regarding his brother, before slowly closing his book.

“You have my full attention,” he promised.

“I swear to you, Prince Loki, my little brother of Asgard,” Thor murmured, reaching out to tenderly cup the juncture of Loki’s next, shoulder, and head. “I will never let another hand fall upon you that means you harm. And I will protect you to my dying breath.”

A small smile threatened to break out across Loki’s face but too many years of being the invisible Prince had given him generous experience in hiding his emotions from others. Yet there was something so raw and genuine in this moment that he could not fight back a gentle smile as he softly remarked,

“Thank you.”

………………………………

“Thor and Loki attempted to free Hela.”

Odin had thought Frigga would be on his side, in the situation.

“Did they succeed!?”

He had thought wrong.”

“No,” Odin replied, turning to his wife in time to see the crestfallen look on her face. “You must understand, Frigga, it is for the greater good-”

“That is my  _ daughter _ you locked away.”

“Not by blood she isn’t.”

“Do you see her birth mother anywhere in the palace?”

Odin shifted, having the vague yet wise sense to understand when he was treading on dangerous ground.

“Frigga-”

“Hela is my daughter, by blood or not,” Frigga declared firmly. “And if that is not enough for you, need I remind you which of your children  _ Loki _ chose to imitate as a baby?”

Odin sighed. “She was  _ dangerous _ -”

“Simply because Loki chose her form and he made a mistake?” Frigga demanded. “So too must Hela suffer?”

“She has always been a violent child, Loki’s fall would do little but to encourage her,” Odin said firmly, a temper beginning to start as Frigga refused to settle the discussion. “You saw the disrespect she showed towards me after he vanished into the void.”

“And have you ever asked yourself  _ why _ she acted out?”

“You were not there,” Odin boomed. “You did not see what  _ I _ saw.”

“No,” Frigga agreed softly. “I did not. But it was  _ I _ who comforted Thor after Hela’s banishment and it was  _ I _ Thor told of the incident.”

“And what, if I may, did he say?”

“That you had every chance to pull Loki up as he insisted that he acted out to gain your favor,” Frigga replied. “That you had  _ time _ to save him but instead you sat by and did nothing.”

Odin’s single eye went wide. “You  _ dare _ blame Loki’s fall on me?”

“Yes.” And with a soft woosh of her gown against the wooden floor, Frigga was gone, the bed chamber doors thundering closed behind her.

…………………………………………..

They didn’t discuss their failure in bringing their sister back, but there was no denying they were both thinking about it. After that shared night in the library, Loki and Thor saw little of one another. Thor slowly gravitated back to his friends and Loki returned to hiding away in the library and his chambers.

But when they saw one another during royal requirements or family meals, they always exchanged a curt nod with one another. THor didn’t think Loki had ever really put his fall behind him but they weren’t fighting anymore, which was a plus.

But Loki still remained...cold to him, at times. It could just be the flip of a switch and it was like his brother had reverted back to that Titan controlled... _ monster _ from his attack on Midgard.

“My attitude is bothering you.”

Thor jumped, whirling around to find Loki standing there, his usual shielded expression on shi face as he regarded the elder prince with nothing more than disappointment.

“Loki. I was just thinking about you.”

“Obviously.”

“I’ve been…” Thor cleared his throat, stammering a few times before finally managing to finish his sentence. “Worried. About you.”

“Oh?”

“While Lady Natasha did not share much of what she saw in regards to your time with...the Titan-”

“Get to the point, Thor.”

“I am worried you are suffering the aftereffects.”

“And why is that?”

“You look at me as though I have betrayed your very being.”

Loki blinked, not moving otherwise or making a sound before finally, slowly, shifting and clasping his hands behind his back.

“Tell me, Thor, of what do you know in regards to my... _ imprisonment _ , shall we say, with The Mad Titan?”

Thor hesitated, trying to think and also giving his brother time to explain so Thor did not have to try and fail to put anything into words.

“Truthfully, I know little,” he finally replied. “The Lady Natasha said that what she saw were moments of…”

“Pain? Fear? Suffering?”

“Suicide contemplation.”

Loki hummed, as though contemplationg the murder of oneself was a normal, every day occurance.

For Loki, perhaps it was. It was not as if Thor had ever  _ truly _ known what was going on in his brother’s head, after all.

“The Titan messed with my mind in ways I doubt you could understand,” Loki began slowly. “But he... _ shifted _ my memories. Altered them in any way he could in order to beat me and break me down enough to join his side.”

Thor nodded, knowing that if he ruined this moment he would never get another chance where Loki would so willingly be open to him.

“I’m so sorry I could not save you, Loki.”

Loki shifted, a flash of something (discomfort) filling his eyes for only a moment before it was gone again.

“He shifted my memories of you,” Loki went on carefully. “Of...my fall.”

Thor felt rage boil in his blood as understanding finally dawned, but he carefully breathed through the anger and forced himself to suppress it, lest he scare Loki away and lose his only chance at confirmation.

“I see.”

He must not have been as good at hiding his anger as he thought he was because Loi gave him a look as though he knew  _ exactly _ what Thor was thinking before dropping his hands to his side and continuing.

“As far I know….as I recall…” he gave a soft, breathless laugh. “As I told you on Midgard, I remember you  _ tossing _ me into an abyss. You threw me into the void, left me to  _ die _ and the Titan  _ saved _ me, granting me the power to avenge myself and destroy your precious  _ Midgard _ !”

Thor lost his cool, jerking forward and grabbing Loki’s shoulders in what was no doubt a bruising grip.

“Have you lost your mind!” he cried, giving the smaller god -  _ frost giant, frost giant, frost giant _ \- a violent shake. “Brother surely you  _ jest _ ! You are my brother and I would never-”

“Let me god, you  _ oaf _ ,” Loki snapped, shoving him away and no doubt using a bit of seidr to counter THors natural strength. “If you ever bothered to  _ listen _ and let me finish for once, you would know that I  _ know _ that is not what happened. I cannot recall the truth, only what the Titan left, but I’ve gathered enough from  _ you _ and mother to know the truth.”

Thor backed down, feeling like a fool. “I…” he cleared his throat. “I apologize, brother.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

Thor reached towards him, hesitated a moment, before tentatively asking, “Did I...hurt you?”

“No more than when you threw Mjolnir at me.”

“You were unconscious for _____!” thor cried.

Loki blinked. “And I am still standing  _ now _ , am I not?”

Thor sighed. “We have never truly had the best relationship, have we?”

“No,” Loki agreed easily. “I always preferred Hela. What she did and thought, I did as well. She disliked you and so, I suppose, did I.” Loki turned his gaze out towards the fields. “But now Hela is gone and...you are all I have left.”

“That is not true,” Thor insisted, reaching out - more gently this time - to place his hand on Loki’s shoulder. “You have mother and father! You have  _ Asgard _ !”

Thor couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a genuine smile on Loki’s face, not since they were children certainly, but he felt himself grow warm when the expression greeted him then.

“Thank you, Thor.”

If Thor wanted to sa anything in response, if Loki had anything to add, they never got the chance before a palace guard approached them, giving a polite bow before saying,

“Forgive the interruption, my Princes. The Queen wishes to speak to the two of you.”

Sharing glances and knowing that was the end of their bonding moment, Thor and Loki followed the guard to the throne room.

………………………………

**ONE MONTH LATER**

“Loki.” Frigga smiled as her youngest approached the throne. “I’m sorry I’ve not had time for you of late. With Asgard on my hands-”

“I understand, mother,” Loki murmured, reminding Frigga of his brief stint as King, of the stress that had weighed on him and the dark spiral he had fallen into as a result of it.

It made her next words so much harder to deliver.

“With your father in an Odinsleep, I must remain to protect the realm,” she began. “But I was recently contacted by our delegate on Alfheim. A conflict has arisen and they’re desperately requesting aid.”

Loki nodded. “I can go with Thor to-”

“Thank you for offering,” Frigga cut in. “But...that is not what I called you here.”

She’d never noticed it until then, but Odin was right. When nervous or deep in thought, Loki twisted his hands together in front of himself, just as she did.

She wondered if he even knew he did it. If he knew how much it meant to her, that her son loved her to the point of picking up her habits.

“I see,” Loki finally said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, then.”

Frigga sighed. “I will be going to Alfheim alongside Thor to aid the delegates.”

“What of Asgard? It needs a ruler.”

“Yes. It does.” It was now or never. All she could do was hope that giving Loki Asgard’s throne, even temporarily, would not end so drastically as it had before.

She could not lose her son again. 

Loki frowned, picking up on her silence in an instant. His hands fell. “Mother?”

“Loki, I appoint you-”

His green eyes went wide. “No.”

“King of Asgard-”

“Mother,  _ please _ .” he began backing away.

“For the foreseeable future.” she held out Gungnir. And though she, as Queen and current acting realm ruler, could simply order him to take it, couldn’t help but murmur, “Please.”

Loki shook his head, voice breaking as his eyes watered. “I  _ can’t _ .”

She pulled her arm back. “Loki-”

“After  _ everything _ I did during my  _ last _ rule,” Loki began. “How can you  _ ever _ give me that role again!?”

“Because you have  _ changed _ ,” Frigga replied. “Because you are my son and I am  _ asking _ you.” her eyes softened. “Because you are Prince Loki Friggason and I could not picture anyone else on the throne.”

If word got out to Odin or Thor that she’d said that, there would be a problem. But with just herself and Loki in the room, she felt it was the right thing to say.

Loki’s slender fingers curling around the staff of Gungnir was her proof.

………………………….

Sitting in her prison, Hela allowed herself a dark smile as she turned towards the dark crack in the side of her cell, the one caused by Loki’s attempt to free her.

“It seems I have a King to congratulate.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts!
> 
> Also keep an eye on the title of this work, I'm probably going to change it eventually


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